The Invisible Partners: How the Male and Female in Each of Us Affects Our Relationships 9780809122776

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JOHN A. SANFORD

THED PARTNERS

100,000 COPIES IN PRINT

How

Male and Female in Each of Us Affects Our Relationships the

John A. Sanford

PAULIST PRESS New York/Mahwah

Unless otherwise indicated, Biblical quotations are from the Jerusalem Bible.

Copyright

©1980 by John

Sanford

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by an information storage and retrieval system without permission in writing

from the publisher.

Library of Congress

Catalog Card Number: 79-56604

ISBN: 0-8091-2277-4 Published by Paulist Press

997 Macarthur Blvd.

Mahwah, NJ 07430 Printed and

bound

in the

United States of America

Introduction

1

Chapter One

3

Chapter

Two

31

Chapter Three Chapter Four

56

80

Appendix: Active Imagination Bibliography

Index

129 133

119

Acknowledgments

I

am indebted to my good friend, The Rev. T. Kelsey and my friend and

Morton

colleague Gilda Frantz for reading the

manuscript and giving their

comments; and to

me

the benefit of

my wife, Linny, for

many helpful suggestions, and to Helen Macey for her invaluable help with the

her

preparation of this manuscript.

DoottodtaeflfeoD

The

subject of

men and women,

of the nature of the masculine

and the feminine, always arouses our interest, especially now, when men and women are trying, as never before, to understand themselves, and when the roles of the sexes and their relationship to each other are being reexamined. It

is

also a practical subject,

promising to give us useful information that we can apply directly to ourselves

One

and

to

our personal relationships.

of the most important contributions of the Swiss psy-

G. Jung lies in this area. In his concepts of the anima and animus Jung makes a unique addition to our understanding of ourselves as men and women. In fact, it can be said that among the psychologists of this century only Jung has differentiated the psychology of men and women, and has shown us how chiatrist C.

they interrelate.

It is

because of the great interest today

in the

psychology of the sexes, and because there is no readily available volume that brings together Jung's most important ideas in this regard, that It is

I

have written

for people to

this

whom

book.

Jung's ideas on the masculine and

feminine are new, as well as to those rience in Jungian psychology

and may

who

already have expe-

be interested in the impor-

tant discussions that have taken place regarding the masculine

and feminine where the issues are not yet decided. Although I have tried to pull together the many threads of Jungian thought on this subject, the interested reader may wish to go more deeply 1

2 into

The so there

Invisible Partners

a selected bibliography at the back. Let this and a survey of a rich and varied subject, but not as the final work in a field of knowledge that will it,

book stand

is

as an introduction,

call for much more discussion and further investigation. In dealing with the masculine and the feminine we are, in the final analysis, discussing the human soul, and about this much more still

remains to be discovered.

SfooptfQff

Men

®GD®

are used to thinking of themselves only as men, and

think of themselves as cate that every

human

women, but being

is

women

the psychological facts indi-

man woman

androgynous. "Within every 1

there

is

the Reflection of a

Woman, and

there

is

the Reflection of a

Man,"

within every

writes the

American Indian

Hyemeyohsts Storm, who is stating not his own personal opinion, but an ancient American Indian belief. 2 The ancient alchemists agreed: "Our Adamic hermaphrodite, though he appears in masculine form, nevertheless carries about with him Eve, or his feminine part, hidden in his body." 3

Mythology, and ancient traditions, which frequently express psychological truths that otherwise would elude our attention,

The word androgynous comes from two Greek words, andros and gynos, meaning "man" and "woman" respectively, and refers to a person who combines within his or her personality both male and female elements. The word hermaphrodite is an analogous word. It comes from the Greek god Hermaphroditus, who was born of the union of Aphrodite and Hermes and embodied the 1

sexual characteristics of both of them. 2

Hyemeyohsts Storm, Seven Arrows (New York: Harper and Row,

1962),

p. 14. 3

From

the alchemical treatise Hermetis Trismegisti Tractatus vere Aur-

eus,\6\0, quoted by C. G. Jung in Letters, University Press, 1973), p. 443;

and

cf.

ton University Press, 1975), p. 321 n.

2.

Vol.

Letters,

I,

Vol

(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton II,

(Princeton, N.J.: Prince-

4

The

Invisible Partners

human nature. In that God was an an-

often state this belief in the sexual duality of

the

Book of

Genesis, for instance,

we read

drogynous being, and that the first human beings, being created 4 in His image, were therefore likewise male and female: "On the day God created Adam," begins the fifth chapter of Genesis, "he

made him them.

He

God. Male and female he created them and gave them the name Man." We are

in the likeness of

blessed

when God wished make woman He put Adam into a deep sleep, removed a rib from his body, and made Eve from Adam's rib. Clearly the original man, Adam, was thus both male and female. From this early division of the originally whole, bisexual human being comes the also told in the second chapter of Genesis that

to

longing, through sexuality, for the reunion of the severed halves.

The second chapter ther and

continues: "This

mother and joins himself

is

why

a

to his wife,

man

leaves his fa-

and they become

one body." 5 This idea that the original human being was male and female is found in numerous traditions. For instance, both the Persian and Talmudic mythologies tell how God first made a twosexed being a male and a female joined together and then later divided that being into two. This first, original man was often represented as having extraordinary qualities, as found in the extremely widespread image of the Anthropos, or Original Man, so often referred to in the writing of C. G. Jung and his colleagues. 6 It is a thought expressed most succinctly, perhaps, in Plato's Symposium. Here Plato's character Aristophanes retells an ancient Greek myth about the original human beings, who were perfectly round, had four arms and four legs, and one head with two faces, looking opposite ways. These human spheres possessed such marvelous qualities and great intelligence that they rivaled the gods who, acting out of envy and fear, cut the spheres in two

—

in

order to reduce their power. The original, spherical beings

4

Wherever possible

or mankind, but

my

—

I

common

will try to

avoid using the masculine to refer to

fell

God

usage and the awkwardness of our language prevent

being completely consistent. 5

Gen.

6

For a summary of the idea of the Anthropos

2:24.

see Marie-Louise

von Franz,

Individuation in Fairy Tales (Zurich: Spring Publications, 1977), pp. 90tT.

Chapter One

5

apart into two halves, one feminine and one masculine. Ever since then, so the story goes, the

human

two severed parts of the

being have been striving to reunite.

them meets

his other half,"

original

"And when one

Aristophanes informs

us,

of

"the actual

amazement of love and and one will not friendship and intimacy, be out of the other's sight even for a moment: these are the people who pass their whole lives together; yet they could not explain what they desire half of himself,

.

.

.

.

.

the pair are lost in an

.

of one another." 7

Storm's intuition that each

woman, and

man

contains the reflection of a

shamanism. The shaman, the primitive healer or "medicine man," often has a tutelary spirit who assists him in the work of healing and teaches and instructs him in the healing arts. In the case of a male shaman, this tutelary spirit is female and acts like a spirit wife to him. In the case of a shamaness the tutelary spirit is male, and is her spirit

husband,

vice versa,

whom

is

also reflected in

she has in addition to her flesh-and-blood hus-

band. The shaman

is unique partly because he or she has cultivated a special relationship to the other half of his or her personality, which has become a living entity, a real presence. A spirit wife says to her shaman husband, "I love you, I have no husband now, you will be my husband and I shall be a wife unto

I shall give you assistant spirits. You are to heal with their and I shall teach and help you myself." The shaman comments, "She has been coming to me ever since, and I sleep with

you. aid,

her as with

my own

wife."

8

Poets and philosophers,

who

often see things before the sci-

have intuited that a human being is androgynous. So the Russian philosopher Nicholas Berdyaev writes, "Man is not only a sexual but a bisexual being, combining the masculine and the feminine principle in himself in different proportions and entists do, also

often in fierce conflict.

A man

in

whom

the feminine principle

was completely absent would be an abstract severed from the cosmic element. A woman in

being, completely

whom

the mascu-

The Philosophy of Plato, The Jowett translation, ed. Irwin Edman, Symposium (New York: The Modern Library, 1928), p. 356. Mircea Eliade, Shamanism (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 7

8

(1964), p. 72.

6

The

Invisible Partners

was completely absent would not be a personality. union of these two principles that constitutes a complete human being. Their union is realized in every man and every woman within their bisexual, androgynous nature, and it also takes place through the intercommunion between the two natures, the masculine and the feminine." 9 So this idea of man's androgynous nature is an old one that has often been expressed in mythology and by the great intuitive spirits of times past. In our century, C. G. Jung is the first scientist to observe this psychological fact of human nature, and to take it into account in describing the whole human being. Jung called the opposites in man and woman the anima and the animus. By the anima he meant the feminine component in a man's personality, and by the animus he designated the masculine component in a woman's personality. He derived these words from the Latin word animare, which means to enliven, because he felt that the anima and the animus were like enlivening souls or spirits to men and women. Jung did not simply dream up his idea of the anima and animus, nor did he allow his ideas to remain on the level of creative intuition, as did the Russian philosopher Berdyaev. Jung was a scientist, and the scope of his scientific investigation was the human psyche, hence his ideas are grounded on psychological facts. Empirical evidence for the reality of the anima and animus can be found wherever the psyche spontaneously expresses itself. The anima and animus appear in dreams, fairy tales, myths, the world's great literature, and, most important of all, in the varying phenomena of human behavior. For the anima and animus are the Invisible Partners in every human relationship, and in every person's search for individual wholeness. Jung called them archetypes, because the anima and animus are essential building blocks in the psychic structure of every man and woman. If something is archetypal, it is typical. Archetypes form the basis for instinctive, unlearned behavior patterns that are common to all mankind, and represent themselves in human consciousness in certain typiline principle

... It is only the

9

Nicholas Berdyaev, The Destiny of Man

1960), pp. 61-62.

(New York: Harper Torchbooks,

Chapter One

7

For Jung, the concepts of anima/animus explain a wide and form a hypothesis that is confirmed over again empirical by evidence. over and Naturally, in any such discussion as this we come up against the question of what is meant by "masculine" and "feminine." Is there a difference between the masculine and feminine? Are the apparent differences between men and women due to archetypal, cal ways.

variety of psychic facts

underlying psychological dissimilarities, or are they entirely the result of socially assigned roles and conditioning? In support of the latter idea

it

can be argued that the roles

men and women

play sometimes seem to be designated by the particular cultures

which they exist. It can be argued that men and women do what they do only because society assigns them that particular role or task. According to this point of view, there is no essential psychological difference between men and women, and it is only in

cultural influence that produces the apparent dissimilarities be-

tween the male and the female. In support of this contention is the fact that men can perform most of the functions women usually

perform, except the biological functions associated with

and women can also perform the way men do. The fact that women do not usually do what men do, and vice versa, is laid at the door of social expectation. In addition, there is the admitted difficulty of defining what is masculine and what is feminine, for as soon as a definition is offered there is always an objection, "But women (or men) sometimes act that childbearing, of course,

way

too."

The fact that men and women can perform many of the same functions in life supports the idea that each person is a combination of male and female polarities. Because of their feminine side, men can function in certain circumstances in ways traditionally regarded as feminine, and vice versa. This is a matter that will be considered in more detail later on.

On

the other side of the discussion, the question of whether

an archetype for the masculine and for the femiwhether essential psychological differences exist between the sexes and between the psychological polarities within each sex is a matter to be decided by empirical evidence. Jung's view is that, while undoubtedly the cultural and social expectations and roles greatly influence the ways men and women or not there

nine

—that

is

is,

—

The

8

Invisible Partners

live their lives, there are nevertheless

chological patterns.

The argument

underlying archetypal psy-

for this position will gradually

unfold in the course of this book, and readers can decide the issue for themselves in terms of their

As

own

life

experiences.

between what is the masculine and is the feminine, it is perhaps best to talk in terms of images what rather than in terms of psychological functioning. To speak of male and female is a way of saying that psychic energy, like all forms of energy, flows between two poles. Just as electricity flows between a positive and a negative pole, so psychic energy flows between two poles that have been called masculine and feminine. They are not always called masculine and feminine, however, and in this book the ancient Chinese terminology of Yang and Yin will sometimes be used instead. These terms are often more satisfactory because Yang and Yin are not defined in terms of role, or even in terms of psychological qualities, but by means of images. "Yang means 'banners waving in the sun,' that is, something for differentiating

'shone upon' or bright."

Yang is designated by heaven,

bright, the creative, the south side of the

the sky, the

mountain (where the

sun shines) and the north side of the river (which also receives the sunlight). On the other hand, "In its primary meaning Yin is 'the cloudy, the overcast/ "

Yin

is

designated by the earth, the

dark, the moist, the receptive, the north side of the mountain and 10

Of course the Chinese also speak of Yang as the masculine and Yin as the feminine, but basically Yang and Yin represent the two spiritual poles along which all life flows. Yang and Yin exist in men and women, but they are the south side of the river.

cosmic principles, and their interaction and relationship de-

also

termine the course of events, as the Chinese wisdom book, the / Ching, clearly shows. In a similar vein, the Chinese book of meditation, the

Tai I

Hua Tsung

Chih [The secret of the golden flower], tells us of the two psychic poles in each man or woman. One is called the p'o soul and is represented by the kidneys, sexuality, and the triChin

gram K'an (from the / Ching), and expresses itself as eros. The other, the hun soul, is represented by the heart, consciousness, 10

The I Ching or Book of Changes, trans. Richard Wilhelm and Cary (New York: Pantheon Books, 1950, 1966 ed.), p. xxxvi.

Baynes.

F.

Chapter One

and the poles

fire

fall

trigram Li, and expresses

away from each other

outward, but

if

if

9 itself as logos.

These two

their energies are directed only

their energies are directed inward, through cor-

rect meditation, the

two unite

to

form a higher and indestructible

personality. In the translation of this Chinese text by the sinologist

Richard Wilhelm, the two souls are also called anima and

animus. Jung notes that the p'o soul ters for

and Yin.

its

written with the charac-

is

white and demon, and therefore

it

means "white ghost,"

principle belongs to the lower, earthbound nature so

The hun

soul

is

made from

it is

the characters for cloud and de-

mon, and therefore it means "cloud-demon, a higher breath11 soul," and so is Yang. We might wonder why, if men and women have always had a feminine and a masculine component, this fact has eluded the awareness of mankind in general for so many years. Part of the answer

that self-knowledge has never been one of our strong

is

points.

To

oneself

is

the contrary, even the most elemental knowledge of something that most people resist with the greatest determination. Usually it is only when we are in a state of great pain or confusion, and only self-knowledge offers a way out, that we are willing to risk our cherished ideas of what we are like in a confrontation with the truth, and even then many people prefer to live a meaningless life rather than to go through the often dis-

agreeable process of coming to there are

some

know

themselves. In addition,

aspects of ourselves that are harder to

know than

For instance, the shadow personality that is made up of unwanted and undeveloped characteristics, which could have become part of consciousness but were rejected, has long been recognized by the church. "The good that I would I do not, but the evil which I would not, that I do," cries out Saint Paul as he anothers.

guishes over his shadow. 12

It is

not incredible to us that there

is

a

darker side to our nature, because religion has so often pointed it out, though even here there is a remarkable conspiracy within

most of us

to

pay

lip service to

our darker nature but avoid seeing

"See The Secret of the Golden Flower, trans. Richard Wilhelm, with a Foreword and Commentary by C. G. Jung, trans, from the German by Cary F. Baynes (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1931, rev. ed. 1962), p. 115. 12 Rom. 7:19 KJV.

The

10

Invisible Partners

So our shadow personality is often obvious to to us. Much greater is our ignorance of the masculine or feminine components within us that escape our attention because they are so entirely other than our consciousness. For this reason Jung once termed the integration of the shadow the "apprentice-piece" of becoming whole, and the integration of the anima or animus the "master-piece." 13 But there also is another factor that makes knowledge of the anima or animus so elusive: These psychic factors within us are it

in the particular.

others, but

unknown

usually projected. Projection

is

a psychic mechanism that occurs

whenever a vital aspect of our personality of which we are unaware is activated. When something is projected we see it outside of us, as though it belongs to someone else and has nothing to do with us. Projection is an unconscious mechanism. We do not decide to project something, it happens automatically. If we decided to project something it would be conscious to us and then, precisely because

it is

conscious to us,

it

could not be projected.

Only unconscious contents are projected; once something has be-

come conscious

projection ceases.

So the anima and animus have, for the millennia of mankind's history, been projected onto mythological figures, onto the gods and goddesses who have peopled our spiritual world, and, perhaps most important of all, onto living men and women. The gods and goddesses of Greek mythology can be understood as personifications of different aspects of the masculine or the femi-

way in which the and as long as people believed in the living reality of their gods and goddesses they could, through appropriate ritual and worship, effect some sort of relationship to

nine archetype. Mythology has long been the

human psyche

personified

itself,

their psychic world.

When the anima and animus are projected

onto other people remarkably altered. For the most part, man has projected the anima onto woman, and woman has projected the animus onto man. Woman has carried for man the living image of his own feminine soul or counterpart, and man has carried for woman the living image of her own spirit. This has led

our perception of them

13

and

C. G. Jung, Collected

is

Works

the Collective Unconscious

[hereafter cited as

CW\

9, 1,

(New York: Pantheon Books,

The Archetypes

1959), p.29.

1

Chapter One to

many unusual and

1

often unfortunate consequences, since these

have a peculiarly powerful So Jung said, in explaining part of the reason why the anima and animus have not been generally recognized as living realities within ourselves often

or irritating

effect.

human personality, "In the Middle Ages, when a discovered an anima, he got the thing arrested, and the judge had her burned as a witch. Or perhaps a woman discovered parts of the

man

an animus, and that

man was doomed

to become a saint, or a savOnly now, through the analytic process, do the anima and animus, which were always outside beior,

or a great medicine man.

fore,

.

.

.

begin to appear transformed into psychological functions." 14 Because the anima and animus are projected, we do not usu-

ally recognize that they

belong to

us, for they appear to be outonce the phenomenon of projection is recognized, these projected images can, to a certain extent, be taken back into ourselves, for we can use projections as mirrors

side of us.

in

On the other hand,

which we see the

reflection of

our

own

psychic contents. If

we

discover the anima or animus image has been projected onto a

man

woman,

or a

contents of our

that

makes

own psyche

it

possible for us to see in reflection

that otherwise might escape us.

capacity to recognize and utilize projections tant for self-knowledge

when

since these psychic factors

that they

within us

is

The

especially impor-

comes to the anima or animus, can never become so conscious to us it

do not project themselves. The contrasexual element is so psychologically elusive that it escapes our com-

plete awareness, therefore It

it always is projected, at least in part. cannot be a matter of knowing these realities so well that pro-

no longer occurs. This is an impossible goal, and animus do not partake of ego reality, but carry

jection

different

edge

is

mode

of psychological functioning.

concerned,

rors, a task that

is

it is

As

for the

anima

for us quite a

far as self-knowl-

a matter of utilizing projections as mir-

possible with the use of Jung's psychological

concepts.

There

is

no one

single place in

which Jung wrote a

definitive

statement about the anima or animus. If you wish to find out

what Jung had

to say

different passages in

14

C. G. Jung,

'The

on the subject

many

it is

necessary to read

different major works.

Nor

Interpretation of Visions," Spring, 1965,

p.

many

did Jung

1

10.

"

'

The

12

Invisible Partners

content himself with one single definition, but from time to time offered different ones. In doing so, however, he did not contra-

each definition brings out a different aspect of

dict himself, for

these realities.

The simplest and earliest definition Jung offered is that the anima personifies the feminine element in a man, and the animus per-

woman. He

sonifies the masculine element in a

writes, "I

have

woman the animus and the corresponding feminine element in man the anima. 15 Marie-Louise Von Franz referred to Jung's definition of the anima in her chapter in Man

called this masculine element in

and His Symbols where she wrote of

that

'

'the

anima is a personification

feminine psychological tendencies in a man's psyche, such as

all

vague feelings and moods. 16 Jung also speculates that the anima and the animus personify the minority of feminine or masculine genes '

within us. This thought occurs in several places in Jung's works. For instance,

a

man

"The anima

has a minority of female genes, and that

not disappear in him." the in a

an archetypal form, expressing the fact that

is

17

Of course

the

is

something

does

said for

animus as a personification of the minority of masculine genes woman. That is, on the biological level, a man derives his mas-

culine, physical qualities

by

virtue of having a slight plurality of mas-

culine over feminine genes, and vice versa in the case of a

The anima, Jung has suggested,

woman.

personifies on the psychological

plane this minority of feminine genes, and, in the case of a the

that

same thing could be

woman,

animus personifies the minority of masculine genes.

which makes men and women different is Yang and women Yin, for each sex con-

If this is so, that

not that

men

are entirely

tains the other within; fies his

15

C. G. Jung,

C.

G

Jung,

Co., Inc., 1964), 17

N.J.:

the fact that a

C. G.

p.

ordinarily identi-

Man and

hardback

1, p.

uncon-

York: Pan-

His Symbols (Garden City N.Y.: Doubleday and

ed. p. 177.

Jung Speaking,

CW 9,

is

88n.

ed.

Wm. McGuire

Princeton University Press, 1977),

par. 782;

man

CW1, Two Essays in Analytical Psychology (New

theon Books, 1953), 16

it is

ego with his masculinity and his feminine side

58 and

p. 512.

p.

and R.

296. Also

cf.:

F. C. Hull; (Princeton,

CW 11, par. 48; CWS,

Chapter One scious to him, while a

woman

identifies herself consciously

her femininity, and her masculine side

The ego and man's body

is

13

the body carry, as

with unconscious to her.

is it

A

were, the same sign.

masculine, shaped by the male hormone and de-

signed for certain functions; a

woman's body

is

feminine, and

is

designed to perform certain specifically feminine functions, the most obvious being childbirth. The ego identifies with the masculine or feminine quality of the body, and so the other side, the anima or animus, becomes a function of the unconscious. This, at least, is the usual psychological development in men and women, though in some cases it may not be adequately achieved. A man

may

fail

to develop a sufficiently masculine ego, for instance. In

such a case, as we shall

see, there

a feminized masculinity, as

it

may

result a

were, that

may

homogenized ego, lead to a form of

homosexuality. All of this has important implications for the relationship

between the

sexes.

As

stated above,

men,

identified with their

women,

masculinity, typically project their feminine side onto

and women, ject their

identified with their feminine nature, typically pro-

masculine side onto men. These projected psychic im-

ages are the Invisible Partners in every

and greatly influence the occurs the person ly

who

man-woman

relationship,

relationship, for wherever projection

carries the projected

image

is

either great-

overvalued or greatly undervalued. In either case, the

reality of the individual

who

carries a projection for us

scured by the projected image. This

is

human is

ob-

especially the case with

the anima and animus since these archetypes are so numinous.

This means that they are charged with psychic energy, so that they tend to grip us emotionally. Consequently these projected

images have a magnetic

effect

on

us,

and the person who

carries a

projection will tend to greatly attract or repel us, just as a magnet attracts or repels another metal. This leads to all kinds of compli-

cations in relationships,

some of which

will

be examined in the

last chapter.

Like all archetypes, the anima and animus have positive and negative aspects. That is, sometimes they appear to be highly desirable and attractive, and sometimes destructive and infuriating. In this they resemble the gods and goddesses who could

The

14

shower mankind with

Invisible Partners

gifts,

but could also turn on mankind de-

anima image is projected by a man onto a woman, she then becomes highly desirable to him. She fascinates him, draws him to her, and seems to him to be the source of happiness and bliss. A woman who carries this projection for a man readily becomes the object of his erotic fantasies and sexual longings, and it seems to the man that if he could only be with her and make love to her he would be fulfilled. Such a state we call falling or being in love. Naturally, a woman who carries such a powerful anima projection is pleased, at least at first. She feels flattered and valued, and, though she may be only dimly aware of it, enjoys a feeling of structively. If the positive aspect of the

considerable power.

The person who

carries a projected psychic

image from another person does have power over that person, for as long as a part of our psyche is perceived in someone else that other person has power over us.

The woman

usually regrets the situation in time, however,

as she experiences the disagreeable side of being the carrier of an-

other person's soul. She eventually will discover that the gins to suffocate her. She

may

find that he resents

it

man

be-

when she

is

not immediately and always available to him, and this gives an oppressive quality to their relationship. She will also discover

man

any attempt on her part to develop her indiway that it goes beyond the anima image he has placed on her, for, in fact, he sees her not as she actually is, but as he wants her to be. He wants her to fulfil and live out for him his projected feminine image, and this inevitably will collide with her human reality as a person. So she may find herself living in his box, fenced in by his determination that she fulfil his projection for him, and she may discover that the shadow side of his seeming love for her is a possessiveness and restrictiveness on his part that thwarts her own natural tendency to become an individual. When she insists on being herself she may find her man jealous, resentful, and pouting. She may also begin to dread that the

resents

vidual personality in such a

his sexual advances,

which, she begins to suspect, are not func-

tions of the relationship

between them, but have a compulsive,

unrelated quality to them. Indeed, the two easily wind up at log-

gerheads regarding sex. relationship with the

The man

is

woman who

compulsively drawn to sexual carries his feminine

image for

5

Chapter One him, and

1

complete only after coitus, when he feels a sense of momentary oneness with her. The woman, on the other hand, wants to work out the human relationship first feels the relationship is

and then give herself sexually to the man, and many devils whirl around this difference between them. Moreover, the opposite projection can replace the positive one suddenly and without warning. The woman who at one time carried the projection of the positive anima, the soul image, for a

man, may suddenly receive the projection of the negative anima, man has to do is blame her for his own bad moods and suddenly he will see her in this light, and men, unfortunately, are notorious for putting the responsibility for their bad moods on women. Moods in a man, as will be seen, are disagreeable effects that descend on him from his feminine the image of the witch. All a

side.

Being, as a rule, unenlightened about their

own

psychology,

most men project the blame for these bad moods onto their women, which accounts for the fact that a woman whom a man was once in love with and regarded as a goddess can just as easily be seen by him as a witch. She is then undervalued as much as she was once overvalued. The same projections are made by women onto men, of course. If a woman projects onto a man her positive animus image, the image of the savior, hero, and spiritual guide, she overvalues that man. She is fascinated by him, drawn to him, sees him as the ultimate man and ideal lover. She feels completed only through him, as though it were through him that she found her soul. Such projections are especially likely to be made onto men who have the power of the word. A man who uses words well, who has power with ideas and is effective in getting them across, is an ideal figure to carry such animus projections from a woman. When this happens he then becomes bigger-than-life to her, and she is quite content to be the loving moth fluttering around his flame. In this

way she misses

having displaced

it

The man who

the creative flame within herself,

onto the man. receives such projections

may

often not be

worth them. For instance, Adolph Hitler seems to have received the animus projection from the women of his time. He had an archetypal quality when he spoke, and a fascinating power with words. I once asked a Jewish woman friend of mine, who had

The

16

Invisible Partners

Germany just in time, how it was that the German women were so ready to send their sons to Hitler to be destroyed in his war machine, and why it was that they did not gotten out of Nazi

object.

She answered that they were so fascinated by his words

they would have done anything he asked. If a

he

may

man

animus projection for a woman can be an inflating experience to carry

carries the positive

feel flattered;

such projections.

it

We are all too willing to identify ourselves with

the powerful images projected on us, and in this the

much more humble

way escape from

task of recognizing the genuine bound-

our personalities. But the man, too, may soon become aware of the disagreeable aspect of carrying such projections. He

aries of

begins to feel the sticky, clinging, unreal quality that has attached itself to

the relationship.

looks to a

man

As

Irene de Castillejo put

to be the keeper of her soul

impatiently declare that she

is

it

it,

if

a

woman

"only makes him

reading more into the relationship

than exists." 18

Jung also comments on what it is like for a man to carry an animus projection. "When somebody has an animus projection upon me," he comments, "I feel as if I were a tomb with a corpse inside, a peculiar dead weight; I am like one of those tombs Jesus speaks of, with all sorts of vermin inside. And moreover decidedly a corpse myself, one doesn't feel one's own life. A real animus projection is murderous, because one becomes the place where the animus is buried; and he is buried exactly like the eggs of a wasp in the body of a caterpillar, and when the young hatch out, 19 they begin to eat one from within, which is very obnoxious." Jung refers to the animus as being buried when it is projected because it is dead as far as its conscious development as a psychological function

is

concerned.

As mentioned, the negative projections are just around the The same man who once seemed fascinating and magnifi-

corner.

cent can just as readily be seen to be an infuriating, frustrating person.

11

The

positive projection falls

Irene de Castillejo,

away when

Knowing Woman (New York: G.

familiarity ex-

P.

Putnam's Sons,

1973), p. 174. 19

C. G. Jung, The Visions Seminars, Part

tions, 1976), p. 493.

Two

(Zurich: Spring Publica-

Chapter One

17

poses the relationship to a healthy dose of tive projection

is

right there to take

its

reality,

place.

and the nega-

The man who once

was overvalued now is undervalued. Once seen as a hero, he now becomes a demon who seems to be responsible for all the woman's disappointments in love and feelings of being belittled. If both a man and a woman project their positive images onto each other at the same time, we have that seemingly perfect state of relationship known as being in love, a state of mutual fascination. The two then declare that they are "in love with each other" and are firmly convinced that they have now found the ultimate relationship. Such relationships can be diagrammed as follows:

Woman's Ego

Animus

Anima In this diagram

it

will

be seen that there

is

a certain relation-

ship on the conscious level between the ego personalities of the

man and

the woman, represented by line A. But there is also the powerful attraction between the two of them represented by lines B and B\ which is the result of the projected images of the posi-

anima and animus. But the most powerful factor of all is line C, which is the attraction via the unconscious. Here it is as though the animus of the woman and the anima of the man have fallen in love with each other, and here is the bind, the powerful pull between them, the source of the magnetism of the being-in-

tive

love state.

There

is

much

to be said for falling in love.

probably remember the

first

time

we were

Most of us can and what un-

in love,

The

18

Invisible Partners

expected and powerful emotions were released. rience of falling in love in a

wonderful way.

It

is

to

become open

To have

the expe-

to matters of the heart

can be the prelude to a valuable expansion life. It is also an important experi-

of personality and emotional

ence because

it

brings the sexes together and initiates relation-

Whether this leads to happy or unhappy consequences, life is kept moving in this way. Perhaps, especially with young people, falling in love is a natural and beautiful experience, and a life that has not known this experience is no doubt impoverished. The fact is, however, that relationships founded exclusively on the being-in-love state can never last. As will be seen in chapship.

ter four, being in love is a ings,

matter for the gods, not for

and when human beings

gods and

live in a state

not

last

it

when put

up.

A

be-

try to claim the prerogative of the

of "in-loveness" (as differentiated from

truly loving each other), there

scious to break

human

is

a

movement from

the uncon-

relationship of being in love simply does

to the test of the reality of a true,

human

rela-

can endure only in a fantasy world where the relationship is not tested in the everyday stress of real life. When they live together in everyday human conditions, "John and Mary"

tionship;

it

soon become real to each other as actual, imperfect human beThe more real they are to each other as people, the less possible it is for the magical, fascinating images from the unconscious to remain projected on them. Soon the state of being in love fades away, and, worse yet, the same anima and animus who

ings.

once

fell

The

in love with each other

may now

begin to quarrel.

inability of the state of being in love to

endure the

stress

of everyday human life is recognized by all great poets. This why the relationship of Romeo and Juliet had to end in death.

is

It

would have been unthinkable for Shakespeare to have concluded his great love story by sending his loving couple to Sears to buy pans for their kitchen. They would have quarreled in an instant over what frying pan to choose and how much it was going to cost, and the whole beautiful love story would have evaporated. Great poets leave such love stories where they belong: in the hands of the gods. Or, if the human pair insists on living out the love fantasy, they may bring everything down around their heads in ruin. This is what Lancelot and Guinevere did in Camelot. Having fallen in love, they insisted on trying to make their love

Chapter One

19

relationship a personal matter, to try to found their lives on

As

matter what. er,

and

their love fantasies in a

fulfil

down around them

they brought

round

it

no

they tried to identify with and possess each oth-

table, depicting

human

sexual relationship,

The

the ruin of Camelot.

great

wholeness, was shattered, and the story of

became the tragic story of the destruction of the beautiand the downfall, not only of themselves, but of the noble King Arthur and many brave knights as well. their love ful castle

The stress of

fact that the state of being in love

everyday

life is

not what

we want

cannot endure the

to hear, at least not in

present-day America, which depicts the state of being in love as the goal of the relationship between the sexes, and constantly

dangles

it

in front of

Human beings are

our eyes with advertisements on

We

lurement of fantasies.

man

woman,

or

that

is

prefer to go

the

man

or

on looking

woman who

image and guarantee that we are happy and it

It

bitterness to our

should

now

cup of

al-

for the perfect

will

fit

our ideal

even though and adds more

fulfilled,

leads to disappointment after disappointment,

and more

television.

not very keen on substituting reality for the

life.

be clear that to the extent that a relationship

founded on projection, the element of human love is lacking. in love with someone we do not know as a person, but are attracted to because they reflect back to us the image of the god or goddess in our souls, is, in a sense, to be in love with oneself, not with the other person. In spite of the seeming beauty of the love fantasies we may have in this state of being in love we can, in fact, be in a thoroughly selfish state of mind. Real love begins only when one person comes to know another for who he or she really is as a human being, and begins to like and care for that is

To be

human

being.

No human their

being can match the gods and goddesses in

shimmer and glory and,

love for

who

she or he

is,

at first, seeing the person

all

whom we

rather than in terms of projections,

may

seem uninteresting and disappointing, for human beings are, on the whole, rather an ordinary lot. Because of this many people prefer to go from one person to another, always looking for the ultimate relationship, always leaving the relationship

when

the

and the in-loveness ends. It is obvious that with such shallow roots no real, permanent love can develop. To projections wear off

20

The

Invisible Partners

be capable of real love means becoming mature, with

realistic ex-

means accepting responsibility for our own happiness or unhappiness, and neither expecting the other person to make us happy nor blaming that person for our bad moods and frustrations. Naturally this makes real relationship a difficult matter, at which one must work, but fortunately pectations of the other person.

It

the rewards are there too, for only in this

way does our

capacity

for love mature.

This

is

is a bad thing. In itself, the anima and the animus is a perfectly natural always occur. The anima and the animus are vital-

not to say that projection

projection of the

event that will

our psyches; as we have seen, they will never be so well known to us that they do not project themselves onto members of the opposite sex. In this way, via the projection, they become visible to us. Each time projection occurs there is another opportunily alive in

know our inner, Invisible Partners, and that is a way knowing our own souls. There is also the fact that, as has al-

ty for us to

of

ready been noted, projection

Man

the sexes together. quite a

power

is

often the factor that

woman

and

of attraction to bring

first

are so unlike that

them together

it

draws takes

in the first

place; projection provides this influence because of the fascina-

tion with

which

it

endows the member of the other

sex.

For

this

reason most love relationships begin with projection, and this serves life for then life moves. The question is, what happens then? Does that relationship become a vehicle for the develop-

ment of consciousness, or do we give in to our infantile nature and go on and on through life insisting that somewhere there must be a relationship that offers us perfect bliss and fulfillment? Projection in itself is neither good nor bad; it is what we do with it

that counts.

examples from history help us here. Dante and Mark Antony are both classic examples of men whose anima was projected onto women, but they dealt with their projections in very

Two

different ways.

When

he was only nine years

old,

according to

Boccaccio, Dante met Beatrice (who was also nine). Instantly he fell in love with her. When we fall in love with someone instantly

we can be someone

sure a projection

whom we

do not

is

yet

involved, for

how

could

know? The following

we

love

idealized de-

.

Chapter One

21

scription of her, which Dante wrote some years later, shows the powerful influence on Dante of the projected anima image:

Her dress on that day was of a most noble color, a subdued and goodly crimson, girdled and adorned in such sort as suited with her very tender age. At that moment I say most truly that the spirit

of

which hath its dwelling in the secretest chamber of the began to tremble so violently that the least pulses of my

life,

heart,

body shook therewith; and

in trembling it said these words: Ecce deus fortior me, qui veniens dominabitur mibi (Behold a deity stronger than I, who, coming, will rule me) From that time forward Love quite governed my soul. 20 .

was not

It

Dante was eighteen

.

that he again

saw Be-

After the second meeting he wrote of her:

atrice.

...

until

.

it

happened that the same wonderful lady appeared

dressed

all in

pure white.

her eyes thither where able courtesy

.

.

.

I

And

me

with so virtuous a bearing that

seemed then and there to behold the very I parted thence as one intoxicated.

Then, for that

rhyme,

I

me

stood sorely abashed; and by her unspeak-

she saluted

Then Dante adds

to

passing through a street, she turned

limits of blessedness.

.

I .

significantly:

had myself in some sort the making a sonnet. 21

art of discoursing with

resolved on

I

This practically ended the relationship between Dante and

we can

such a cursory encounter a relationship, began Dante's relationship with his soul, and launched him on his astounding and vigorous career as a poet. Dante wrote Beatrice,

but

if

call

it

many work,

of his beautiful sonnets to Beatrice, and in his crowning The Divine Comedy, Beatrice reappears as his guide

through heaven. The fact that at the age of twenty-three Beatrice

20

21

La vita nuova [The new life], as quoted in The Age of Faith by (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1950), p. 1059.

Dante,

Will Durant Ibid.

22

The

Invisible Partners

married someone else and a year

him

in the slightest.

and

it

later died did not discourage

Dante had turned his encounter with the anima, which had fallen on Beatrice, into hard and creative work kept him going for a lifetime. The experience of the Roman

general

Mark Antony was

quite different. After the assassination of Julius Caesar in 44 B.C.,

became emperor in the West and Antony in the East. Antony went to his new domain to receive the homage of the various kings and queens who were now subject to his rule, among whom was Cleopatra, the Queen of Egypt. Will Durant says of her, "Cleopatra was a Macedonian Greek by origin, and more probably blonde than brunette. She was not parCaesar's adopted son, Octavian,

ticularly beautiful; but the grace of her carriage, the vivacity of her

body and her mind, the

variety of her accomplishments, the sua-

vity of her manners, the very

her royal position to

melody of her

voice,

combined with

make her a heady wine even

for a

Roman

She was acquainted with Greek history, literature, and philosophy; she spoke Greek, Egyptian, Syrian, and allegedly other languages, well; she added the intellectual fascination of an Aspasia to the seductive abandon of a completely uninhibited woman." 22 Cleopatra, who was supposed to be the conquered general.

became the conqueror, as she sailed up the river Cydnus to meet Antony "in a barge with purple sails, gilded stern, and silver oars that beat time to the music of flutes and fifes and harps. Her maids, dressed as sea nymphs and graces, were the crew, while she herself, dressed as Venus, lay under a canopy of cloth of gold." 23 When Antony met this "seductive apparition" he fell in love with her at once, and thus began one of the most famous, and tragic, love affairs of history. Cleopatra became as his soul to Antony, and as a consequence enjoyed enormous power over him. Antony was disastrously weakened because he could experience his soul only as it was projected onto Cleopatra, and from this time his qualities of generalship and leadership deteriorated. Until now, Antony had been a renowned military leader whose courage and dedication to one,

22

Will Durant, Caesar

p. 187. 23

Ibid., p. 204.

and

Christ

(New York: Simon and

Schuster, 1944),

Chapter One his

army had won the

23

fierce loyalty of his troops.

However

la-

mentable might have been Antony's wanton and pleasure-seeking

ways

war the best in him came out and he proved himself a man of courage and an excellent general. Now Antony lost that quality of decisiveness which must mark the successful military man. For instance, when he had the Parthians at a marked disadvantage, and might have defeated them with a in times of peace, in

decisive campaign, he chose instead to postpone the struggle until

enemies had a chance to regroup their forces and resolve He acted, according to Plutarch, "as a

his

their internal disputes.

man who had no the effects of

proper control over his

some drug or magic, was

faculties,

still

who, under

looking back else-

where." 24

was not long before Octavian and Antony had a falling out, and each marshaled his forces for a decisive battle. Antony had the superior army and was the more experienced general, while Octavian had built a new naval force and had won recent naval victories in the Western Mediterranean. Yet Antony chose to meet Octavian at sea because Cleopatra, who had a fleet of her own, wished it so. "So wholly was he now the mere appendage to the person of Cleopatra," writes Plutarch, "that, although he was It

much

superior to the

enemy

in land-forces, yet, out of complai-

sance to his mistress, he wished the victory to be gained by sea." 25

The two naval forces met at the famous battle of Actium in Antony had parceled out his powerful army of over 100,000 men and placed them on board the great, un wieldly Oriental galleys that made up his fleet. Octavian met him with his fleet of smaller but much more maneuverable ships. Moreover, Antony's ships were manned by conscripts and inexperienced seamen, while Octavian's were manned by experienced and loyal Romans. Nevertheless, the battle might have been won by An31

B.C.

tony had

it

not been for his excessive attachment to Cleopatra.

Writes Plutarch, "But the fortune of the day was

and the

24

battle equal,

when on

Plutarch's Lives, chapter on

Son Company, 1909), 25

Ibid., p. 383.

p.

363.

undecided,

a sudden Cleopatra's sixty ships

Mark Antony; The Harvard Classics edition, Clough (New York: P.F. Collier

translated by Dryden, corrected and revised by

&

still

24

The

Invisible Partners

were seen hoisting sail and making out to sea in full flight, right through the ships that were engaged. The enemy was astonished to see them sailing off with a fair wind toward Peloponnesus. Here it was that Antony showed to all the world that he was no longer actuated by the thoughts and motives of a commander or a man, or indeed by his own judgment at all, and what was once said as a jest, that the soul of a lover lives in someone else's body, he proved to be a serious truth. For, as if he had been born part of her, and must move with her wheresoever she went, as soon as he saw her ship sailing away, he abandoned all that were fighting and spending their lives for him, and put himself aboard a galley of five ranks of oars, ... to follow her that had so well begun his ruin and would hereafter accomplish it." 26 Antony's forces, disheartened by the flight of their leader, lost the battle. For a time his remaining troops reassembled on land and held fast, waiting for their leader to return. But when Antony failed to come back to lead them, even his most loyal sol.

.

.

diers joined the side of the victorious Octavian.

Meanwhile An-

had returned to Egypt, there to await doom. Within a few months both Antony and Cleopatra were dead by their own hands. The difference in outcome between the lives of Dante and Antony can be attributed to the ways in which they responded to the projection of the anima. Both men experienced the power of the anima as she projected herself onto a mortal woman. Dante, however, turned the experience into creative work, and realized his Beatrice as a figure of his own soul. Antony was unable to experience his soul except through projection, which led him into a life of pleasure and idleness, and so unmanned him that he lost

tony, sunk in depression, his

the integrity of his personality.

These two examples are drawn from the annals of

history,

but the projection of the anima and the animus, and the resulting complications in the relationships of

men and women,

the daily fare of the psychotherapist. Eleanor

woman

in her mid-twenties,

husband had

left

came

26

Ibid., p. 387. Italics

mine.

a

for counseling because her

her for another woman.

woman, she had been married

are also

(I shall call her),

A

large but attractive

for about seven years.

Her hus-

Chapter One

25

band had been away on a cruise with the navy when he wrote to her and said he was not coming back, but was going to the woman in another part of the country whom he "had always loved." For seven years, he now told his wife, he had done nothing but think of this other woman and now he was going to find her even though it meant giving up his relationship with his wife. He explained to Eleanor that though he liked her he did not "love" her, but was "in love" with the other woman. It made little difference to him that this other woman was already married and had several children. He succeeded in finding his long-dreamt-of love and managed to persuade her to leave her husband and live with him. Perhaps she and her husband had a poor relationship, or maybe she was flattered to think that a man would love her for seven years and come gallantly across the country to marry her. Meanwhile, Eleanor had had enough. Although she deeply felt the rejection, she gained sufficient strength and self-confidence to decide that she could get along without her husband, especially

had such shallow

tionship to her

roots.

if his rela-

There were no children

involved in her marriage, and she filed for a divorce. tionship between Eleanor's husband and the

The

woman

of eleven weeks. Then

rela-

he had

was over, and he was writing Eleanor again explaining that he had been "loved" for so long lasted

all

"disillusioned." Eleanor decided not to take

Although

I

him back.

did not meet the husband, the story had

hallmarks of a classic case of anima projection.

whom

the

it

young man dreamt

for seven years

all

the

The woman

of

was not the actual

woman

he lived with for eleven weeks, but the elusive anima image in his mind. Unfortunately, he could experience his soul only through projection and, evidently, lacked the flesh-and-blood

psychological depth and moral maturity to place real relationship

above his fantasies and the longings inspired in him by his awakened anima. Had he been able to see his situation differently, he might have recognized that the anima, the image of his soul, was trying to reach for

it is

him

via his love fantasies for the distant

through just such fantasies that the anima

become conscious to a man. Another young woman came tain somatic complaints that

first

woman, seeks to

for counseling because of cer-

were psychogenic

in nature. Jane, as

26

The

Invisible Partners

had been divorced for about a year; she had one seems that she had liked her husband perfectly well, but had fallen in love with another man. Apparently he also loved her and the two planned to divorce their spouses and marry each I shall call her,

child. It

other. Jane divorced first

time went by and he

and waited

for her lover to join her, but

stalled. Finally he told her that while he did

"love" her, he did not love her enough to ery night.

woman

He

come home

to her ev-

eventually divorced his wife, but married another

instead of Jane. This

left

Jane

all

alone and very de-

pressed. Without a husband to support her, she had to take a job as a secretary, a job she disliked greatly. When I asked her what

she would like to do instead she replied, almost

guiltily,

"You

want to be a wife and mother." This was sad, for that is exactly what she was not able to be now, for although she had one child she had no husband, and had to spend most of her days at work rather than making a home. Jane reported several dreams in which the man with whom she had fallen in love came to her as a lover. She took these dreams literally, as personifications of the love relationship between the two of them. In doing this, she missed their inner, psychological meaning, for the man in the dream can be understood as her creative animus, a personification of her own creative powers that now want union with her. (In dreams, sexual union frequently represents the tendency of some part of us to unite itself to our conscious personality.) If Jane had understood these dreams properly she would have realized that had her creative powers been awakened, the projection of these creative powers onto the outer man could have been resolved, and her life would know,

I really just

have taken a different direction. By choosing instead to live out her longings concretely, through the man who carried for her the projected image of the creative animus, she chose an unconscious path instead of a conscious one, and this almost always results in a disaster or, at least, in some kind of mischief. Because she missed the real point of her experience she failed to realize a certain potential in herself that was seeking actualization in her life. Fortunately she

is

young, and hopefully

life

will

send along other

opportunities.

What Jane

experienced

is

very

common. As Marie-Louise

Chapter One

von Franz points us that

is

27

when

there

is

a certain creative energy in

spilling out over the edges or

and family

riage

out,

27

boundaries of the marbecomes projected onto a person This leads to the attraction to, and fascinatypically

life, it

of the opposite sex.

tion with, that person, as has been discussed.

When

this occurs,

one needs to examine closely what is happening. Am I married to the wrong person? Do I want to get away from my husband or wife and live permanently with the other person? Or, is the other person a hook onto whom my creative powers, which are not completely satisifed in the marriage, are projected? If the answer to the first

two questions

need to be made in one's

is

affirmative, perhaps realistic changes

life.

If the last question applies, the pro-

jection of the creative energies needs to be

be

withdrawn so they can

fruitfully realized as a potential within oneself.

What happened

to Jane can also be understood in terms of

the disparity that almost always occurs in a relationship such as

marriage.

One person

is

more contained

in

such a relationship article on mar-

than the other, as C. G. Jung brought out in his riage.

For the person who is contained in the relationship, emoand physical needs are satisfied; there is no need to go be-

28

tional

yond the relationship, for that person feels comfortably fulfilled. For the container, however, there is a tendency for libido to spill out over the boundaries of the relationship and seek an outlet elsewhere. This psychic energy that spills out that, as just noted, readily

son unless

it

is

a creative energy

becomes projected onto another

finds a suitable outlet. It

is

per-

important that the con-

tainer in such a relationship realize that the deepest longing

is

for

unity of the personality, a unity that, as Jung has pointed out in his article,

is

available to the contained person via the relation-

ship, but that the container

must seek

in

another way.

Often the personality of the container

is

more complex and

developed than that of the contained person. However, some-

27

Marie-Louise von Franz, The Feminine

in

Fairy Tales (Zurich: Spring

Publications, 1972), pp. 13fT. 28

C. G. Jung, "Marriage as a Psychological Relationship," Development of Personality (New York: Pantheon Books, 1954), 1964 edition.

CW p.

17,

The

189 of the

28

The

Invisible Partners

times roles switch, and there are relationships in which now one now the other, is the container; or perhaps the wife is

person,

contained spiritually in the husband and the husband contained emotionally in the wife, or vice versa. Each person has a struggle.

For the one who

is

contained there

is

anxiety and distress because

that person senses, consciously or unconsciously, that the partner is

not in the relationship as

the container there

is

much

as he

is.

For the person who

a sense of frustration, and sometimes

is

feel-

ings of guilt or disloyalty because of an awareness that he or she is

not responding to the partner as the partner would

the

man

or the

Either

like.

woman may be the container for the other.

It

does

not seem to be a matter of sex that determines which person plays which role, but rather a matter of which person has the

more

differentiated personality.

Naturally,

if

one person

is

the container, and the other the

contained, this places a certain stress on the relationship and part of a force that tends to

draw people away from each

is

other,

rather than toward each other. In every relationship there are certain factors tending to

and

their oneness

to pull

them

promote the togetherness of the people, and other factors tending

desire to be together,

apart. It

is

helpful to look at the latter factors as be-

longing to the principle of individuality, not as being entirely negative.

A relationship is the joining together of two people.

This

is

one side of life, but the other side of life calls for the accentuation of an individual personality, and for this to develop there must be the assertion and recognition of individual differences. One rather frequent fantasy that married people find going through their minds

The

fantasy

may

is

the fantasy that their partners are dead.

consist in the simple thought,

band/wife should die?"

Or

it

may

"What

if

my

hus-

develop into a fantasied scene

of death, or even a wish that the other person would die. Natural-

such fantasies shock us, and we tend to repress them quickly, we should have such a thought. But in most cases such fantasies are simply a compensation for a relationship in which the lives of the two people are too intertwined, and there is a need for more individual development. This same thought was expressed by Jesus in a statement that would be shocking unless

ly

horrified that

we took

it

as a

way of

stating the importance of individual psy-

chological development: "If any

man comes

to

me without

hating

Chapter One

29

his father, mother, wife, children, brothers, sisters, yes

and

his

he cannot be my disciple." 29 The need for individual development does not invalidate relationship. Only separated beings can relate. Unless there is indi-

own

life

too,

vidual development on the part of two people, true relationship

cannot occur. Instead, a state of mutual identification develops that blunts the psychological development of both partners. Nevertheless,

when

the principle of individuality asserts

itself in

a re-

important that the two people involved are able to discuss their differences and accept them. It also helps if the two lationship

it is

common.

people have certain things in tends to hold together share a

common

more

commonly shared

for instance,

if the man and the woman and educational background.

often

racial, religious,

Common goals also help,

A marriage,

such as the goal of raising children, or a

financial goal.

Having

friends in

common

is

also helpful.

Every relationship is a mixture of areas where people meet and areas where they do not meet because the two people are different. Verda Heisler, author of the helpful article "Individuation through Marriage,

,,3

°

diagrams the situation in

A

this

way:

B

In this diagram, the areas that are shaded represent areas in

which the man and

woman

share interests, goals, or aspirations

common. The white sections represent areas where there are individual differences. The amount of overlap may be greater or less. So diagram A shows a relationship in which there is more in

psychological

life

shared in

common

than in diagram B.

Clearly these Invisible Partners have a fateful effect on relationships. As we have seen, when they are projected the anima

29

Lk. 14:26.

30

Verda

Heisler,

"Individuation through Marriage," Psychological Per-

spectives, Fall 1970, Vol.

1,

No.

2.

The

30

Invisible Partners

and animus can produce extraordinary attractions and repulsions between men and women, and invariably mislead a man or

woman

into thinking too

much

or too

little

of his or her partner.

But the anima and animus also produce their marked effects on the consciousness of men and women quite apart from projection, and here too they have disturbing effects on relationships. It is

to this that I

now

turn.

SfoapftMF "Ota®

Myths and

fairy tales, being

spontaneous representations of psy-

chological reality, often represent the anima and animus, and

through their vivid story imagery show us how they can affect human life. Take, for instance, the Greek myth of Circe, who was a deadly female being, known for her enchantments and evil spells. She had poisoned her husband and gone to live in a beautiful castle on the isle of Aeaea. By means of magic, she had the power to enchant any man who wandered onto the shores of her island, and she could turn him into an animal. The most famous story about Circe is found in the Odyssey. Odysseus's men have

and have been welcomed by Circe, who entertains them and gives them a glorious banquet in her palace, but just at the height of their pleasure and enjoyment Circe casts her evil spell on the men and they are turned into swine. Odysseus himself, fortunately, had been forewarned by the god Hermes, who provided him with an herb that was an antidote to the spells of Circe. Thus prepared, Odysseus is finally able to get the better of Circe and compels her to free his men from her evil spell. But even then her fascination is so great that Odysseus dalventured onto the

isle

with her on the island for a year, forgetting about his wife, Penelope, and the urgency of his voyage back to his homeland. The Sirens, whom we also meet in the Odyssey, were as danlies

gerous as Circe. The Sirens were fearsome female creatures with bodies of birds and heads of women. They could make exceeding31

32

The

Invisible Partners

ly melodious music, which was so enticing that no man who heard their music could resist going to them. But once a man approached them the Sirens set upon him and tore him apart, add-

ing his bones to the heap of skeletons that were scattered over their terrible island.

Odysseus himself would have

the Sirens had he not been forewarned by Circe.

fallen prey to

When

passed the island where the Sirens lived he had his

his ship

men

stop

up

himway, though he heard

their ears so they could not hear the deadly music, while he self

was lashed securely

to the mast. In this

the music, he was able to pass safely by.

In both of these tales

we have female

beings

who

are ex-

tremely dangerous to men. They have great seductive power, and

can lure

men

with their offerings of pleasure or music into a state

of unconsciousness. Then, once the less,

they destroy them.

men

are seduced and power-

The transformation of Odysseus's men

into swine represents the reduction of masculine consciousness to

most swinelike nature, and a psychological state in which a man has become identical with his appetite for sex and pleasure. The rending apart of men by the Sirens personifies the way the deadly anima power can tear masculine consciousness into shreds by luring men into a state of unconsciousness with offerings of bliss and pleasure. In this way Greek mythology personified the deadly, dangerous side of the anima that can lure a man to his destruction. We could say that Mark Antony fell prey to the evil effects of the anima in her Circe and Siren aspect, for he became identical with his appetites for pleasure, and was lured to his destruction by the sirenlike quality of the anima he projectits

lowest,

ed onto Cleopatra.

Odysseus

is

able to escape this evil fate because he has been

he has become conscious of the meaning of the situation. Equipped with his knowledge of the deadly nature of Circe, the hero is able to overcome her dangerous side and ex-

forewarned, that

is,

perience her helpful side, since Sirens and

who

tells

him how

it is

she

who warns him

about the

to find safe passage. Odysseus's

men,

represent ordinary consciousness, do not hear the Sirens'

music, but Odysseus does.

The hero

is

the

man who

is

fully ex-

posed to the anima and her effects, but is psychologically enlightened and so does not fall prey to her negative side. A striking example of the dangerous side of the animus is in

Chapter Two the story of Tobit, which

is

us of the beautiful young

found

33

in the

woman,

Apocrypha. The story

who is possessed by a demon, Asmodeus. Seven times Sarah had been married, but each time the demon Asmodeus had come on her wedding night tells

Sarah,

and strangled her husband. Sarah prays prayer and resolves to help her. righteous, blind old

to

God, who hears her

also hears the prayer of the

man, Tobit, and

the angel Raphael to help the old

woman

He

and sends and the young

his son, Tobias,

man and

his son,

Sarah.

Raphael takes Tobias on a journey and on the way they come to a river. Tobias goes down to the river to wash and as he does so a fish leaps up and would have swallowed him had not Raphael cried out, "Catch the fish." Tobias catches the fish and throws it onto the land and, acting on the instructions of the angel, cuts out the heart, liver, and gall, and takes them with him. Eventually they arrive at Sarah's home where Tobias is told by Raphael that he is to marry the young woman. At first Tobias objects. "I have heard," he complains, "that the girl has been given to seven husbands and that each died in the bridal chamber. ... I am afraid that if I go in I will die as those before me did, for a demon is in love with her, and he harms no one except those who approach her." 2 But the angel instructs him to take the heart and liver of the fish and make a smoke of them, and tells him that when the demon smells the smoke he will flee to the remotest parts of the earth. Tobias does as he is told. He falls in love with Sarah, marries her, and that evening makes a smoke of the heart and liver of the fish, and Asmodeus, smelling it, is ban1

ished.

3

Asmodeus personifies the animus, who, when he is in poswoman, acts like a demon. We are likely to be possessed by an unconscious content when we are ignorant of it and have no relationship to it, but it helps us when we are related to session of a

it.

Becoming conscious or aware of the contents of

scious

1

2

3

the surest

is

6:3,

Ibid.,

6:13-14.

The

gall

to establish a relationship.

the unconIt

has been

RSV.

Tobit

blindness.

way

of the fish

is

used later

in the story to

cure the old man, Tobit, of

34

The

Invisible Partners

make up

said of the complexes that

people wonder

know and

is

it is

if

the unconscious that most

they have any complexes; what they do not

that their complexes have them. So

because he possesses her that he

is

her seven husbands because the animus,

Asmodeus has Sarah

a demon.

He

when he

possesses a

destroys

woman, is destructive to human relationships and to eros values. The angel and the fish symbolize the healing powers of the unconscious, and, more specifically, the power of a spiritual life. As Jung once pointed out, one antidote to possession by evil is to have one's soul filled with a spirit more powerful than that of evil. When Tobias heats the gall and liver of the fish and sends up a smoke, it is as though a new spiritual force enters into Sarah's soul, and there is now no room for the evil, demonic force. Tobias,

of course, also arouses Sarah's eros, and brings up her feeling

for a

man and for relationship.

have the capacity to banish clue about

how

a

woman

animus: Her soul must be

the evil

must

anima.

It is

eros also

can destroy the deadly effects of the with a more powerful spirit than

and her capacity

for eros

and

rela-

live.

The demon Asmodeus, tive Sirens

human warmth and

power. So the story gives us a

filled

that of the destructive animus,

tionship

This

the sorceress Circe, and the seduc-

symbolize the destructive effects of the animus and usually these negative effects that

and that must be overcome

if

Partners are to be realized.

The

we

first

experience

the positive aspects of the Invisible negative, destructive effects con-

"bad news" about the animus and anima, so they be considered first and the "good news," the helpful, positive of the anima and animus, reserved for the next chapter.

stitute the

will

side

The

negative effects of the anima and animus are directly re-

man's unawareness and devaluation of his feminine side, and a woman's unawareness of her masculine side. With men, the anima tends to take them over in proportion to their failure to properly recognize and respect feminine values in themselves, in life, and in women. For this reason, men need to learn to talk with women and to listen to them, for a woman can then instruct a man in what is important to her; in this way he becomes more related to eros and its values. This facilitates his lated to a

Chapter Two

35

proper relationship to the anima, an important matter, for in dealing with archetypal figures of the unconscious the key is relatedness. For, as

we have

seen,

when such

figures are related to

consciousness their positive side tends to be manifested, other-

wise their demonic side tends to appear. In the case of the anima, it is she who lies behind a man's moods. When a man is possessed by the anima he is drawn into a dark mood, and tends to become sulky, overly sensitive, and withdrawn. A poisonous atmosphere surrounds him, and it is as though he is immersed in a kind of psychological fog. He ceases to be objective or related, and his masculine stance is eroded by peevishness. If a man argues or writes in this frame of mind, this peevishness and poison will certainly emerge. In writing, the influence of the anima can be seen in sarcasms, innuendos, irrelevancies, and poisonous jabs that reveal a subjective, personalistic bias and detract from the objective quality of the work. A man in the grip of the anima acts for all the world like an inferior kind of woman who is upset about something and that, in fact, is exactly what he has within himself. Such a mood may fall on a man in an instant. A seemingly chance remark from someone, a slight, an almost unnoticed disappointment, and suddenly a man may be in a mood. Astonishingly enough, men almost invariably fail to note that something

from within themselves has suddenly possessed them, that a mood has fallen on them and gripped them, and that the event has been quite autonomous. Such moods may simply make the man a bit grouchy or out of sorts for a while, or they may become dangerously dark. If the moods are chronic they into alcoholism or severe depression. stances,

an intense anima

feeling of hopelessness that

mood may

he commits suicide.

presence of the anima within

than

women

Under

plunge a

attempt suicide,

may

lead a

certain

man It is

man

circum-

into such a

no doubt the

a man that explains why fewer men but more men than women actually

It is as though the anima says, "It and the man falls into utter despair. The woman in a man's life could tell him a lot about these anima moods. She knows almost right away when a mood has

succeed in killing themselves. is all futile!"

her

man

because then he

is

not available for relationship.

One

36

The

Invisible Partners

cannot get through the mood to find the man. It is as though he has disappeared, and someone else has taken his place. This moodiness of the man has, as a result, a disturbing effect on a

woman, who

finds

it

diffucult to be with a

man who

is

in

such a

state.

If

you can get to the bottom of a man's mood you

will find

man may hardly realize what it is. It may be that his inner woman does not like what the man is doing. For instance she may not like his work because it drains her of life and energy, or it may keep her from her fulfillthat something has gone wrong, but the

ment in life. It is as though the man's inner woman, and the woman's inner man, also need to be fulfilled in life, but the only way they can be fulfilled is through the kind of life their outer

man

or outer

woman

proper scope in leaves her

life,

no room

leads.

who

is

woman who

Imagine a

for her emotions or her

own

is

denied her

way of

forced to endure a

life

that

creative powers.

Such a woman would, naturally, become dissatisfied and her displeasure would be felt in the bad atmosphere she would create. It is exactly this way with the anima if she does not have enough share in the man's life. But the negative anima mood may also be a function of a relationship. For example, a man may get thrown into this mood

when his feelings have been hurt. Someone has ignored him, given him a nasty verbal thrust, or rejected him in some way, and he hurt and angry.

When

man

were to express his feelings directly he would be all right he would not go into a mood. If it is his wife who has hurt his feelings, for instance, and if he were to say to her, "That really made me angry when you said that," he would be himself and would not become possessed by the anima; he would not fall into a mood about it. But if the is

man

the

is

hurt, if he

—

does not express his feelings, they

and the anima

gets them.

The anger

taken over by the anima,

directly

is

in fact,

resentment in a

man

is

work. In the hands of the anima

fall

into the unconscious,

that the

who

man

turns

it

did not express

into resentment;

always a sign of the anima at this

unexpressed and unresolved

anger smolders, burns, and eats away at him, and

is

expressed in-

by "passive-aggressive" moods and behavior. It is always ready to erupt into flames; then the man does not have his anger,

directly

Chapter Two

37

it has him. He is possessed by rage, and his anger is in constant danger of becoming a terrible affect, for it is as though the anima stands poised to drop her flaming match into the waiting can of

gasoline,

and the man

will erupt in

an engulfing and uncontrolled

emotion.

Jung noted that the anima can be seen to be at work wherevand affects are at work in a man. He wrote, "She intensifies, exaggerates, falsifies, and mythologizes all emotional relationships with his work and with other people of both sexes." 4 er emotions

The antidote for this, as has been mentioned, is for the man know what he is feeling and become capable of expressing this relationship. This keeps his

to in

emotion out of the clutches of the an-

ima, and, moreover, satisfies her that the correct thing

is

being

done with whatever it is that has wounded or aroused him. The anima does not necessarily want to carry the man's emotional life for him; she gets it by default. It is as though she says, "Why don't you say something about that irritating thing that so-and-so has just done to you! If you don't do something about it, / will." We can say that if something has gone wrong in an emotionally significant relationship the anima will grouse about it until the man straightens it out, or comes to terms with his emotions in

some proper way. Unfortunately, feelings.

Men

many men have

difficulty expressing their

tend to like their relationships to be smooth, easy,

and comfortable. They are reluctant to get into emotionally toned discussions or difficult issues. They want "peace and quiet" and want their women to maintain a pleasant atmosphere and not bring up distressing matters. But, as we have just seen, if matters of relationship are ignored they simply get worse, and when a man consistently denies his feelings, and fails to relate them to the people in his life, he becomes a chronically moody, resentful, anima-ridden man. Then it is as though a witch has gotten him, for he has become identical with his moods. If a man becomes capable of expressing his feelings, not only does he keep emotional matters out of the clutches of the anima, he also becomes a much more developed person. A man who al4

Jung,

CW

9,

l,p. 70.

38

The

Invisible Partners

ways avoids emotionally toned encounters with other people is One way for him to get out of his Mother complex is to express himself in relationship. If he fails to do so he remains emotionally a little boy who is afraid of women, who resents them if they don't keep him happy, and who is out of contained within the Mother.

touch with his

Men

own masculine

have happened

up unpleasant things

in a relationship with a

afraid of her anger, or their will

strength.

are often reluctant to bring

own

woman

that

because they are

anger, or they are afraid they

be rejected, or they are afraid of pain.

Working things out in relationship requires that a man must come to terms with his anger. He must become comfortable enough with anger so that he can express it without being overit; he must be able to allow himself to have his own creative dark side. One man I know said that whenever a difficulty arose with his wife he positioned himself near the door so that when he became angry he could simply leave. He was that afraid of his own anger. Of course, until he could work this through with himself he would not be capable of working out his relation-

come by

ship with his wife.

man

woman's anger it often goes back to the boy a small boy when mother becomes angry at him! See how unpleasant it is for him, and how many little boys will be terribly hurt, and want to do whatever they can to appease mother so things will be good again, or, if they are more robust, will spew out boyish defiance so as not to be overwhelmed by their own hurt feelings. A woman's acid anger and power of rejection have enormous influence on other people, men and boys especially, and if a man is to become capable of relationship with a woman he must overcome his fear of her anger and his anxiety about being rejected. This may mean that he will have to find and help the little boy in himself. By recognizing his hurt-little-boy side he is much less likely to become identical with it, and can remain more the man in relationship with the woman If a

in his

is

afraid of his

in him.

little

Watch

life.

He will

also have to deal with the angry, rejecting side of his

Why

does she have to be that way? he may ask himself. But just as the anima has a negative side that must be overcome if the positive side is to be realized, so every man must be capable

woman.

Chapter Two of enduring the dark side of the find her tender

and

woman

life-giving side.

39 in his life if

he

is

going to

5

A man's fear that he will be rejected if he brings up difficult is usually unfounded. A woman who

matters in the relationship cares about a

man, or

is

at all

connected to her

own

instincts for

relatedness, has a great capacity for confrontation

and working young man who was working in a restaurant once had an angry encounter with one of the waitresses in which he told her just what he thought of her and some things she was doing. Afterwards he came to me in amazement and said, "You know, you can tell a woman anything you want as long as it is related." He was astonished that this girl had listened to what he had said, had responded to it, and had not just become angry at him or walked out on him. Related anger means that the issues that are brought up are concerned with what is going on between two people. It is an things out.

A

honest expression of genuine feeling. If a

man

expresses anger in

an unrelated way to a woman, he will do it indirectly by creating a bad atmosphere or indulging in a personalistic attitude. If he expresses anger in a related way, he will tell her just what it is that is upsetting him. If a woman cares about a man she will not reject him if he expresses his anger at her in this way; to the contrary, she will welcome it, for it shows that their relationship is meaningful to him. From a woman's point of view, if a man ignores matters of relationship it is the same as ignoring her, and

means

that

to her that she

and the relationship are not important

to him.

Many times women

welcome a man's anger because it tells them when they have gone too far. Where there is emotion, something is happening, and it means the other person is taking part in the relationship. When a man never shows any will also

emotion he leaves a vacuum

5

By

the way, every

possessed. There

is

in the relationship, and, especially if

woman who

a tendency

is

angry

comes from the animus. This can operate expressing those angry feelings that

mus may

men

very well take up the cause of a

but the feminine

is

is

not "in the animus" or animus-

among men.to suppose

that

all

anger

in a

woman

way to keep a woman from face. As we will see, the ani-

as a subtle dislike to

woman's anger and express

quite capable of being angry on

its

own.

it

for her,

40

The

Invisible Partners

he becomes passive, there is something in most women that will dominate such a man if he allows it. It is man's passivity in relationship that draws out a woman's animus. A man's anger may be his healthy reaction against domination, and this kind of anger a

woman

will

be glad to receive, for in

tendency to

stinctive

that's the

come

way

it is.

and be dominate him.

Now I

it

she will recognize and

from her own inthough she says, "So can stop dominating him for he has be-

respect her man's strength,

liberated

It is as

himself."

have stressed here the way a woman appreciates a man's it can be the other way around, of course; it can be the man who yearns for a genuine emotional response from his woman. More often than not, it is the man who I

emotional reactions, but

retreats emotionally

with

many

On

from

relationship, but this

is

a generalization

exceptions.

the other hand,

if

the anima gets hold of a man's emo-

falsifies, and exaggerates the whole matter. These distortions the anima creates in a man's mind have led James Hillman to challenge an oft-stated thesis among Jungian psychologists that men relate through the anima, that a man who has a "well-developed anima" will, as it were, relate through her to other people. Hillman contends that if we want relationship the anima should not be a part of it. "It seems odd," he writes, "that anima could ever have been considered as

tions, as

Jung

a help in

human

said,

she intensifies,

relationship. In each of her classical shapes she

non-human or half-human creature and her effects lead us away from the individually human situation. She makes moods,

is

a

which serve human relatedness only where the persons concerned shared the same mood or fantasy. If we want 'to relate,' then anima begone!" 6 It is the man himself who relates, and if the relationship is determined by the anima, it becomes a matter of archetypal fantasy playing itself out through human actors, or of the exaggerations and falsifications of emotions and emotionally toned issues that Jung has described. The important thing to remember, as will be seen more clearly later on, is that the correct position of the anima is indistortions, illusions,

6

James Hillman, "Anima," Spring, 1973,

p.

Ill

Chapter Two

41

ward, not outward. She belongs as a function of relationship between a man's consciousness and the unconscious, not as a function of relationship between a

man and

other people.

intrudes into this outer sphere, there are difficulties. quite capable of doing their

own

relating

and having

When Men their

she are

own

and do not need the anima to provide this for them. The anima not only interferes with a man's emotional reactions, she can interfere with his thinking as well. For instance, feelings,

when

a

man

is

anima-possessed he

may

begin to give forth opin-

is as though the anima begins and she expresses herself as though she had an animus, which means that she expresses opinions without

ions instead of genuine thinking. It

to talk right through him,

regard to

facts, relationship,

or logic.

When

a

man

is

in this state

of mind he begins to argue in a peevish way, and his masculine objectivity al

is

quite lost in a sea of emotionally toned

and

irration-

opinions that prove resistant to reasonable discussion. Jung

pointed out that

when they into the

in a very

womanish way

.

.

.

animus of their own anima." 7

She

own

"men can argue

are anima-possessed and have thus been transformed

may

by

also disturb his thinking

notions of what

is

desirable.

The

infiltrating

result

is

it

with her

a kind of anima-

thinking in which a man's capacity for clear distinctions

is

and his logos is distorted. It is as though the anima, in an effort to promote a kind of "togetherness," blurs over all distinctions and ignores all genuine differences. Then the man is not

blurred,

so

much

the victim of a

mood

as he

figure within himself that seeks to

is

the victim of a powerful

mould

his conscious thinking

and produces fuzziness instead of clarity, fog instead of vision. Among the negative attributes of the anima is her capacity to poison a man's creative urges. When a man gets a creative idea or impulse that would lead him beyond the ordinary, a subtle voice seems to whisper in his ear a destructive thought that may well stop

him

in his tracks.

Let us say that the

man

conceives an

book or article. The you to think you are "Who anima is almost certain to whisper, can write?" Or, "But it has already been written." Or, "But no idea to write, and sees himself compiling a

7

C. G. Jung,

CW9,

2,

Aion (New York: Pantheon Books, 1959),

p.

15.

.

42

.

The

Invisible Partners

one would ever publish it." The creative energy of many men is stolen from them by this subtle voice that seemingly wants to nullify a man's attempts to make something of himself. Jung relates in his autobiography, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, that he heard such a poisonous voice speak to him when he was first beginning to work out a relationship with his unconscious personality through the use of the technique of active imagination.

When

8

was writing down these

I

"What am

I really

fantasies, I

once asked myself,

doing? Certainly this has nothing to do with

But then what is it?" Whereupon a voice within me said, was astonished. It had never entered my head that what I was writing had any connection with art. ... I knew for a certainty that the voice had come from a woman. I recognized it as the voice of a patient, a talented psychopath who had a strong transference to me. She had become a living figure in my mind. Obviously what I was doing wasn't science. What then could it be but art? It was as though these were the only alternatives in the world. That is the way a woman's mind works. I said very emphatically to this voice that my fantasies had science.

"It

is

art." I

nothing to do with

art,

and

a great inner resistance.

I felt

No voice

came through, however, and I kept on writing. Then came the next assault, and again the same assertion: "That is art." This time said, "No, it is not art! On the contrary, it is naand prepared myself for an argument. I was greatly intrigued by the fact that a woman should interWhy was it thought of as feminine? fere with me from within. I

caught her and

ture,"

.

.

Later

I

came

.

.

.

to see that this inner feminine figure plays a typical,

or archetypal, role in the unconscious of a man, and the "anima."

.

I

called her

.

was the negative aspect of the anima that most ima little awed by her. It was like the feeling of an What the anima said seemed to invisible presence in the room. me full of a deep cunning. If I had taken these fantasies of the unconscious as art, they would have carried no more conviction than visual perceptions, as if I were watching a movie. I would have felt no moral obligation toward them. The anima might then have eas-

At

first it

pressed me.

I felt

.

8

.

.

See the Appendix at the back of this book for a description of active

imagination.

Chapter Two seduced

ily

and that

me

my

into believing that

I

43

was a misunderstood

so-called artistic nature gave

reality. If I

had followed her

have said to

me one

day,

voice, she

"Do you

me

artist,

the right to neglect

would

in all probability

imagine the nonsense you're en-

in is really art? Not a bit." Thus the insinuations of the anima, the mouthpiece of the unconscious, can utterly destroy a

gaged

This engaging story from Jung not only illustrates how the anima can poison a man's consciousness and rob him of himself should he fall for her insinuations, it also gives us a hint about

how

a

man

can prevent the negative anima from having this deon him: by making her conscious. Later we

structive influence will look

more

closely at

late positively to the

what

this

anima, and a

means, and

woman

how

a

man

to the animus.

can

re-

Mean-

can be seen that the negative anima is very much like a witch who can seduce a man into unconsciousness, and can turn while

him

it

by paralyzing his creative anima is the master of moods

into stone

efforts.

If the

in a

the master of opinions in a

woman. He

man, the animus

is

typically expresses him-

and apodicdo not come from a woman's own process of thinking and feeling, but have been picked up from various authoritative sources, mother or father, books or articles, church or some other collective organization. It is the animus who is behind the autonomous, critical, and opinionated thoughts that intrude into a woman's consciousness. He thus represents inferior masculine logic, just as the anima represents inferior feminine emotionself in tic

judgments, generalizations,

critical statements,

assertions that

ality.

In dreams the negative animus often appears as a group of

men

rather than as a single individual. Imagine a

educated and uninformed

men

sitting

number of un-

around the cracker barrel

expressing their opinions on politics or religion! This the animus can sound. If a

woman becomes

is

the

identified with

way such

when the animus is not differfrom her own ego psychology, we speak of animus pos-

opinions in herself, which happens entiated session. 9

C. G. Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections

1961), pp. 185-187.

(New York: Pantheon Books,

The

44

Invisible Partners

The opinions of the animus have an unpleasant and even

de-

and may be projected onto other people, or directed inwardly on the woman herself. In the former case, other people cannot stand the woman because of the blunt and critical judgments she passes on them. In the latter case, the woman cannot stand herself, for the effect of the judgments of the animus on her is to destroy her sense of her own value and worth. The animus is thus able to rob a woman of her creativity, even as the anima, as we have seen, can rob a man of his. At the moment when a woman gets a creative idea, or her eros and tenderness begin to stir in her in a new way, the animus may intrude into her consciousness with thoughts that could prevent her from fulfilling herself. He may say, "You can't do that." Or, "Other structive quality,

people can do these things

have nothing of value to thoughts, that truth, the

is,

new

much

better than you." Or,

"You

woman identifies with such them for her own thoughts and for the

offer." If the

mistakes

creative possibility

is

taken away from her.

can be seen that the negative anima and animus seem to personify a destructive, negating force. Mythology has long picIt

tured just such a psychological situation. For instance, in ancient Babylonia it was believed that when a soul was born into the

world the gods appointed two gods and two goddesses to accompany that soul through life. The task of one god and goddess was to help and guide the soul. The task of the others was to try to negate and destroy the soul. In Judaeo-Christian lore this adversary or accuser fact,

the Greek

who word

tries to

destroy us

for the devil

is

personified as Satan. In

means "an accuser," or an "ad-

an accurate psychological portrayal of the way things are. There seems to be a power of evil within us that tries to negate and destroy us, and the negative anima and animus, the witch or sorcerer within us, seem to be a part of that force. The opinions of the animus have a peculiarly irritating effect on other people because, in spite of their seeming logic, they do not fit the actual situation. Yet neither can they be reasoned with, for the animus has an absolutist attitude, and his opinions are not amenable to discussion or qualification. Whenever the animus takes over, a woman is taken away from her own thinking and

versary." This

feeling,

is

and she becomes

identical with banal statements, sweep-

ing judgments, or generalizations. Small wonder,

when

these

Chapter Two

45

judgmental opinions are directed from within against herself, that a woman tends to become depressed and is robbed of the colorfulness of

A

life.

conversation in which the animus

like this:

A man

who

is

is

involved might go

discouraged over some difficulty might

woman might respond with, "Everyone tends to get discouraged now and then." This seemingly harmless statement, true enough in itself, will have the tendency to stop the man dead in his tracks. He will feel put off and not able to go on to express himself, and may feel vaguely angry, though he may not know why. The woman herself is, in her own mind, trying to be helpful, but the animus has taken over and instead of a statement related to this individual man and his need, the animus has answered with a generalization. If a man said such a thing to a woman, it would no doubt express his sense of defeat and despair, and the

come

across to a

woman

in a preachy, superior masculine way.

She would probably feel rejected and put down by the man's sweeping generalization that seems to leave her and her feelings out of the picture. Men are prone to just such sweeping statements, and the animus acts the same way. A man who wishes to relate must learn to temper his masculine judgments with eros, which always makes things personal and individual, just as a woman who remains true to her eros principle will not want to allow the animus and his sweeping statements to take over. The animus often keeps other people from reaching and experiencing the warm, feeling side of a

woman

because they can-

not get through the animus and his opinions. Children with such a woman for a mother feel deprived of their mother's affection because they keep coming up against the animus. She comes across to

them

tal attitudes

and the critical, judgmenshut them out from her ten-

as a hard disciplinarian,

of the animus effectively

derness and affection. (The situation

is

exacerbated

when

the fa-

ther has relinquished the masculine role of disciplinarian and

forced the mother to assume this role in the family.) the mother does not have

warm

It is

not that

feelings for her children; they are

do not receive them because the animus blocks them. Such women may appear hard and steely, and other people may be leery of them, for their animus can wound; howevthere, but the children

er,

strangely enough, they themselves easily get their feelings

The

46 hurt,

and when

this

Invisible Partners

happens they are

dered and do not understand

why

terribly injured

and bewil-

other people do not love them.

The animus-ridden woman and the martyred woman

are not far

from each other. Emily Bronte's profound novel Wuthering Heights

is filled

with illustrations of the psychology of the animus, as Barbara

Hannah has shown in her brilliant book Striving Towards Whole10 ness. Hannah points out a scene in the opening part of the novel, in which Mr. Lockwood has a vivid nightmare of the Reverend Jabes Branderham, as a good portrayal of what C. G. Jung once called "the ravings of the animus." Mr. Lockwood, an unwelcome visitor to the austere home of the somber Heathcliff, is forced to spend the night in Wuthering Heights because of a violent snowstorm. He is ushered by the servant into the forbidding, gloomy room that once was used by the now-deceased Cathy, but has remained unused for many years. Here he finally manages to fall asleep in spite of the grim surroundings, but is awakened in the middle of the night by a terrible nightmare. In his dream a character appears called the Reverend Jabes Branderham, a name Lockwood had chanced upon in some reading shortly before going to sleep. In his dream Mr. Lockwood sits imprisoned in the midst of a somber congregation listening to the Reverend Jabes Branderham preach an interminable sermon on the seventy-times-seven sins. One by one the preacher wearisomely goes through each of the 490 sins. Every one of these discourses is equal to an ordinary sermon, and the sins were "of a curious sort," "odd transgressions," Lockwood notes, "that I never imagined previously." "Oh, how weary I grew. How I writhed, and yawned, and nodded, and revived! How I pinched and pricked myself, and rubbed my eyes, and stood up, and sat down." Finally Branderham finishes with the four hundred and ninetieth sin, but then begins the four hundred and ninety-first sin! That is too much for Mr. Lockwood. He leaps to his feet in the dream and objects: "Sir, ... I have endured and forgiven the four hundred and nineThe four hundred and ninety first ty heads of your discourse. .

10

.

.

Barbara Hannah, Striving Towards Wholeness (New York: G.

nam's Sons, 1971), chap.

10.

P. Put-

Chapter Two

47

The interminable preacher is not dissuaded. PointLockwood he calls on the congregation to "execute upon him the judgment." The result is pandemonium as the people rush upon Lockwood, he defends himself, and finally is

too much!"

ing his finger at

wakens with everyone

fighting furiously with everyone else. 11

As Barbara Hannah notes, the Reverend Jabes Branderham an apt personification of the capacity of the animus to go on and on reciting the list of "sins" that he claims people have comis

mitted.

The

incidents to

negative animus can dredge up the most remarkable

add

to his

unending

list

of sins and failures, and in

addition to acting as prosecutor, appoints himself judge as well.

He

has no mercy in his pronouncements, and there

the

list

is

no end

to

of faults he can find. Small wonder he can impart such

and inferiority in people! Emily Bronte personify for us the workings of the animus in her image of the Reverend Jabes Branderham, for the term animus is a stiff term that, while scientifically feelings of guilt, defeat, It is

helpful to have

useful, does not

enced.

When

he

fit

is

very well with the

way he

seen working within a

is

actually experi-

woman's psyche, Top

often better to speak of him as the Great Prosecutor, the

geant, the Great Scorekeeper, the Inner Judge, or, as one

it is

Ser-

woman

once put it, the "Duty Demon." There are certain words of which the animus is particularly fond "should" is perhaps the most important of these and there are certain statements he makes more often than others. For instance, "You are no good You can't do anything right Other people are better than you You are a failure." The differentiation of the animus is helped when a woman can recognize these autonomous thoughts that suddenly appear in her mind, sense that they are presented to her from a force within herself, and stop to question them. In many cases it helps to write them down so they can be looked at more objectively and seen for what they are. She can even put quotation marks around them because they are thoughts that act as though someone else

—

—

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

mind has spoken them. The animus can also fill a woman's mind with

within her

11

a strange kind

Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights (New York: Random House

1943), p. 14.

edition,

The

48

Invisible Partners

A

young woman who had a loving relationship with an was troubled one night by a dark fantasy in which her only brother was committing suicide. A train of thought then began to run through her mind that went like this: "You see how much you love your brother, yet he might die. Now if you really love your brother, your father, and your mother, you will want to go and be with them as much as possible because they may all die. And if you really love your man you will want to be with him too as much as possible. So you should give up your job, and travel wherever he goes and be with him on as many flights and overnight stops as possible because that is what you should do if you love someone." Fortunately, this "logic" was so outrageous the woman knew something was wrong with it. As she expressed it, "But I would not be myself if I were doing that." This illustrates the way the animus manifests himself in an autonomous train of thought, and a woman needs to be careful and not let it of logic.

airplane pilot

run her life. This quasi-logical aspect of the animus is one reason it is so irritating to other people. His judgments, conclusions, and criticisms have a peculiarly blunt, stinging quality because they are not related to the emotional reality of the situation.

has a

way

When

of using a sword

when

The animus

a lamp would be better.

the animus utters an opinion,

it is said with an air of pronouncement, and pronouncements, of course, are indisputable. This air of authority, Emma Jung 12 suggests in her monograph Animus and Anima, is enhanced by our present culture, which tends to overvalue everything masculine and undervalue the feminine. Masculine achievement, power, control, success, and logic are rewarded in our society by prestige, good grades in school, and generous paychecks. The feminine principle, which tends to unite and synthesize, is undervalued culturally both in men and in women. It is as though the animus were aware of this, and so his utterances are all the more

great authority. It

is

like a

authoritative, while, conversely, a

woman

is

led to distrust her

seemingly inferior and more vague feminine intuitions and feelings, even though it is these that have the truth of the matter.

This 12

is

a deplorable situation, for not only does our world need

Emma Jung, Animus and Anima

(Zurich: Spring Publications, 1974).

Chapter Two

more of the

the healing influence and

woman

ments

herself

is

all

the

49

wisdom of

the feminine, but

more victimized by animus judg-

that, if left unchallenged, nullify

her

own

deepest psycho-

logical truth.

Since the anima and animus have these peculiarly ing effects,

not surprising that they are inclined to quarrel

it is

with each other.

many is

irritat-

A

typical

different ways.

anima/animus quarrel can

start in

A man may come home in a dark mood. He

possessed by this mood, that

by the anima, and exudes an if the man were to tell his woman is,

of poison and gloom. Now what the problem is, things could take a more air

positive direction,

but the chances are that he will say nothing about his frame of

mind, but course he

will just inflict his is

mood on her. Being in this mood, of woman senses this immediately,

not related, and his

and cannot stand the lack of relationship. She finds the psychological atmosphere, and the sense of isolation, increasingly intolerable, and also wonders if somehow she is being blamed for something, for a man in the grip of the anima has a way of being vaguely reproachful of others. At this point, unless the

woman

is

may intrude. It is as though he does not man's moody anima either, and so he will pick up his sword or club and take matters into his own hands. This may be done with some kind of stinging remark, or a direct frontal assault on the man's objectionable moodiness. Stung by the attack, the anima of the man may retaliate. Unvery careful, her animus like that

less the

man

is

quick to realize what

is

going on, and to

make

a

conscious response to this situation, the anima will probably drop

her match into the gasoline, and the result will be an eruption of affect.

The man

will

then become irrational and fight back in a

way, perhaps with a personalistic attack on his wife's character, that of her mother, and anything else that can be thought of to get revenge for the wound that has just been sarcastic, affect-laden

on him. The animus then comes back in kind, and the an angry quarrel. It never occurs to the man, of course, that he has become possessed by a witch inside himself; to the inflicted

result

is

contrary, he

is

quite convinced that his wife

is

to

blame

for all of

this.

Or perhaps stinging

woman's animus that first delivers a remark or irritating opinion. The man is immediately afit

is

the

The

50

Invisible Partners

by this, but unless he is quick to realize what is happening, anima who reacts. As Jung once wrote, "... no man can converse with an animus for five minutes without becoming the victim of his own anima the animus draws his sword of power and the anima ejects her poison of illusion and seduction." 13 fected it is

his

.

At

.

.

this point projections

occur again, but

it is

not the posi-

animus and anima who are projected onto the human partners, creating an air of fascination and magical attraction; it is the negative images, which have the effect of driving the man and the woman apart. The man's wife now receives the projection of his inner witch, and is, accordingly, held responsible for his bad mood, while the woman projects onto her man all the infuriating tive

qualities that, in fact, belong to the

man

inside of herself.

Clearly such anima/animus fights can be destructive.

tive

The

man and woman

have their unproducquarrel, and the atmosphere becomes darker and darker, nei-

tragedy

is

that while the

ther realizes that the scene Partners. It

is

not John and

is

being dominated by the Invisible

Mary who

are quarreling, but these

archetypal figures within them. For just as the anima and ani-

mus can

fall in love,

so they can quarrel, and the intensity of their

attraction to each other

is

matched only by the

intensity of their

dislike.

This destructive anima/animus fight

is

not to be confused

with a genuine encounter between the actual

When John and Mary

man and woman.

confront each other to express their anger

and work out their differences, something positive can emerge. Such encounters between a man and a woman can have great psychological value and must not be avoided just because a person is too squeamish to get into emotionally difficult situations. But when John and Mary are eclipsed by their anima and animus, and these two begin to quarrel, the result is most unfortunate.

The

strange thing

is,

as suggested earlier, that the quarrel

if the man would just say what it is that he is woman would say what it is that is troubling her.

could be avoided feeling,

and the

man directly expresses his hurt, anger, or bewilderment, it who is talking. If he does not, however, the anima gets hold

If the is

he 13

Jung,

CW9,

2, p. 15.

Chapter Two

51

and expresses his emotional reaction for him in the devious, ways described. She exaggerates, as Jung said. In her grasp, a relatively minor personal injury becomes magnified and a mountain is made of a molehill. She falsifies. Once the personal slight or hurt is in her grasp, the facts of the situation become distorted. In the ensuing argument, what really happened becomes obscured by the emotionality of the anima. She intensifies, so that the original emotion the man felt now becomes a powerful affect, and the small fire a large one. And she mythologizes. When things are left in her hands, an ordinary human woman becomes a goddess or a witch and an ordinary human situation takes on a highly dramatic character. Similarly, when a woman who is troubled by something in a personal relationship says what she feels, it is she who is speaking, and the matter can be worked out. But if she hides her true feelings, it is the animus who seizes his club or sword and tries to of

it

destructive

set

matters straight.

ship

is

The

concerned, and

is

result is disastrous as far as the relation-

a defeat for the woman's ego, for the ego

always experiences defeat when

it becomes possessed by the anima or animus. Club in hand, the animus will let the offending man have it by some form of direct attack that may have little perceivable relationship to the actual offense. Taking his sword of seeming logic, the animus will bring up some argument that has little or nothing to do with the real emotional issue. Irritated at such an irrational assault, and frustrated by its seeming unfairness, a man is all too likely to fall into the clutches of his anima at this point and then dark things happen. A woman can avoid this by saying something like, "You seem to be upset about something. Are you angry at me?" If he is angry at her, he can say so and perhaps the matter can be resolved. If not, the woman need not feel guilty or anxious, and can afford to let her man remain with his mood and work it out himself while she goes about her business. For it is not her job to get him out of his mood; that is a task that every man must take on

himself.

Of

course the

"No!" when he

man may

be dishonest.

He may

snarl,

means yes. It is probably best, however, for the woman to take his words at face value and let him stew in his own juice, and say to herself, "Okay, he said I was not to blame for his bad mood so I accept no guilt or responsibility for what he really

The

52 is

in

Invisible Partners

feeling." It goes without saying, of course, that if people persist

emotional dishonesty with each other, relationship

is

exceed-

ingly difficult.

A man who is confronted by a woman's animus can help the situation

by keeping

his cool

and responding out of his own mas-

culine strength. If a man's masculinity

animus, he can usually free the

he can keep himself from

is

stronger than that of the

woman from

possession; at least

falling into the clutches of his inner

woman. It usually helps to find out what the problem really is. "What is really bothering you?" a man might ask if he realizes he has just been attacked by a woman's animus. He may often find that

what really is bothering her has nothing to do with the subanimus has brought up. (It isn't that she doesn't like the he has put on, which she has chosen to violently criticize, but

ject the suit

that she

is

hurt because he ignored her at the party the night be-

fore.)

In her masterful book The Feminine in Fairy Tales, Marie-

Louise von Franz stresses the role of hurt feelings in animus tacks by

women.

points out, "It

If

one

is

very helpful to ask, 'Where have

is

at-

upset or possessed by a mood, she I

been disap-

pointed or hurt in my feelings and have not sufficiently noticed it?' " She continues:

Then you

you can get back to the and where you have not worked it out, the animus possession will walk out; for that is where it jumped in, and that is why in animus possession there is always an undertone of will frequently find the cause. If

origin of the hurt

woman.

the reproachful

Animus

possession in a

in the air at once.

woman annoys men

But what

really gets the

tone of lamenting reproachfullness.

know

madly; they go up man's goat is the under-

Men who know

a

little

more

animus possession is a disguised appeal for love, although unfortunately it has the wrong effect, since it chases away the thing that is wanted. Underneath the animus there is a feeling of reproach and at the same time of wanting to get back at the one who has hurt you. It is a vicious cir14 cle and arguing develops into a typical animus scene. about this

14

Von

that eighty-five percent of

Franz, The Feminine in Fairy Tales,

p. 27. Italics

mine.

Chapter Two

53

It is important to add, however, that much the same thing can be said of a man. If he falls into a mood, he can often free himself by asking, "Where did something go wrong? What does my inner woman not like? Did something that was done or said

hurt

my

feelings?" If

something about

mood

it,

we can

get to the origin of the hurt

the anima possession will disappear.

and do

Men

in

exude the atmosphere of the "reproachful hurt woman," for that is what the anima can be like, and that is why it is so essential for a man to become conscious of his feelings and to act on them. A man must overcome his fears of rejection for, as noted before, many men fear a woman's anger because they are afraid of her rejection. In an effort to avoid the emotional trauma of rejection a man may do all the wrong things, such as trying to appease such a

also

woman's animus, or giving

the

in to a

woman's more

childish re-

he does any of these, he never gets to the bottom of the matter; by his weak and defensive posture he does his woman a great disservice, for what she needs from him is his strength and willingness to get to the actions, or arguing her out of her complaints. If

root of the matter.

As we have seen, beneath such emotional insecurity in a man may be his inner little boy who fears mother's rejection, and who cannot stand being left out in the cold. There may even be deep-rooted memories of a mother who once tried to control him by

you do not do what I want, I you coldly and shut you out, and you will not be able to

rejection, saying, in effect, "If

will treat

stand that."

He may

also recall his mother's use of guilt as a

mechanism of control and punishment. "You are a bad boy, you have made mother angry, and I will shut you up in your room." This may be a memory silently at work in the man's fearful response to his wife, for as far as

men

hated.

Many men,

women have a both feared and

are concerned,

powerful guilt-producing mechanism, which

is

out of sheer inability to face this

guilt, either

woman, or find some way to down so they can remain top dog. So in learning to rewoman, a man also has to come to terms with the little

quit the field in the face of an angry

keep her late to a

boy

in himself. It

can be seen that

in

working out a relationship a person

The

54

Invisible Partners

must also work things out within himself or herself; also one must learn that being a partner in a relationship is extremely important. As Jung once put it, "One is always in the dark about one's self."

own

personality.

One needs

others to get to

know

one-

15

One word of caution: In discussing their relationship a man and woman do well to avoid the use of the terms anima and animus, or any psychological terms for that matter. It is best to use ordinary language, for the use of psychological language

is

unnatural in relationships and tends to depersonalize them. The value of being aware of the anima and animus

know what

is

is

that

we may

going on, and our heightened consciousness helps

us in working out the relationship, but the use of psychological

language as

we do

man

so

is

generally destructive. So a

"Looks

woman who

you are gripped by your anima," might say, "You look upset; is something bothering you?" And a man, suspecting his woman's animus is attacking him, can say, "I have a feeling that you are angry at me about something," instead of saying, "Your animus is showing again." A final comment on the way the anima and animus may negatively affect our lives concerns the influence they have on sees her

in a

mood, instead of

saying,

like

our choice of marriage partners. Because these figures so readily project themselves onto members of the opposite sex, and tend to possess us to the extent that we are unaware of them, they often have a determinative influence upon the kind of man or woman who becomes our husband or wife. An anima-possessed man, with a weak ego and a powerful witchlike anima figure, will quite likely unconsciously select a domineering animus-ridden woman. In this he acts out his inner situation in his outer relationship.

woman who is dominated from within by a negadefeating animus may very likely wind up with a man who

Conversely, a tive,

portrays this negative animus for her by putting her down, negating and criticizing her. This explains

ly

some of the

unlikely unions

made between men and women, and also shows that truwe have no free choice unless we are psychologically conscious

that are

persons.

15

Jung Speaking,

p. 165.

Chapter Two In one of Jung's letters there trates this.

is

55

an interesting story that

illus-

A man who had a gift for writing, but had done noth-

it, had three marriages. His first wife was a pianist, who him after a marriage of seventeen years; the second was an artist whose death ended twenty-two years of an "idyllic" marriage; the third was an actress. After the death of the second wife he experienced strange psychological phenomena, such as hearing "raps and taps" in the bedroom, about two or three times a week. In his letter Jung tells the man that his choice of wives was influenced by the anima. The man had a creative gift, but not the

ing with left

necessary talent to express

own

it

adequately, so he did not live his

creative side; he projected

married. In this

way he missed

it

onto the creative

part of his

own

life,

women

and

it

he

was the

creativity in himself that was behind the strange psychophenomena. Jung commented, "In practice it means that the woman of your choice represents your own task you did not understand." 16 The same thing could be said of the choice every man and woman makes of his or her partner in life; in some way the partner represents something we need to understand about

unused logical

ourselves.

Of course this is just one level of relationship; relationship has many meanings and many levels. The point I wish to make is that the Invisible Partners add an often overlooked level or dimension to our choice of partners in

life.

have talked of the negative side of the anima and animus. always best to get the bad news first; besides, it is usually negative side that we experience first. But the anima

I

It is

this

and animus

also have a positive aspect, in fact,

when

they are in

have a great blessing to give to us. Howorder to realize this blessing we must be able to overcome

their correct place they ever, in

their negative effects. In the next chapter I will suggest

can do

this,

and then go on

how we

to discuss the positive nature of these

figures.

16

C. G. Jung, Letters Vol. 2 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press,

1975), p. 321.

mim In Goethe's great

who he

is,

evil,

Faust,

when Mephistopheles

is

asked

"A part of that power which always and always works the good." So it is that the power

the devil replies,

wills the evil

of

drama

1

while striving to bring about destruction, can in fact en-

gender the good. It has been demonstrated that the anima and animus have their dark side, and can destroy people if they are allowed

dark rages and negative thoughts. But hidden even in this darkness. Robert Johnson gives us a good example of this in his mas-

to possess

them with

their

a potential for the light lies

book HE!, a psychological study of the meaning of the legend of the Holy Grail. It seems that Parsifal, the hero of the tale, has risen to the top of the heap in his knightly world. He has slain more knights than anyone else, done more great deeds, achieved more fame. So a feast is given in his honor, and he, and

terful

all

the other knights of the

Round

Table, are congratulating

themselves on what splendid fellows they are, horrible looking

woman,

so ugly that she

is

when

in

walks a

called the "hideous

damsel." "Her black hair was tressed in two braids, iron dark were her hands and nails. Her closed eyes small like a rat's. Her

1

Goethe's Faust, by C. F. Maclntyre (Norfolk, Conn.:

1941), part

1, p.

91.

56

New

Directions,

Chapter Three nose like an ape and

was

humped

she,

57

Her lips like an ass and bull. Bearded and back, her loins and shoulders twistNever in royal court was such a damsel

cat.

breast

ed like roots of a tree. 2 seen." So the legend describes this terrifying feminine appari-

on the knightly company. The feasting and self-congratulating stop, a hush comes over everyone, and then the hideous damsel begins a recitation of Parsi-

The mere

tion.

fal's sins.

has

left

On

sight of her casts a pall

she goes about the failures of his

weeping, the children

when she

life,

the damsels he

who have been orphaned

because

through she says, "It is all your fault." 3 Of course the hideous damsel is a personification of the anima. Experientially she would be felt as a terrible mood, a foreboding depression and great malaise, which might overcome a man at just the point when he is at the apex of his masculine career in the world. As Johnson points out, the hideous damsel is a of him, and

is

personification of that kind of

male depression which

typically

middle age at just the point when a man has reached his and successes. She personifies "the anima gone absolutely sour and dark." She is the living image of the man's the feminine side, failure to deal with the other side of his life the spiritual side, the soul side. She is dark and monstrous in di-

comes

in

greatest strengths

—

rect proportion to the

man's outer success, and inner denial of

the things of his soul.

On came

it,

the hideous damsel looks as though she

hell.

In fact, she can be a hellish force in a

the surface of

straight

from

man, pulling him into depression, drink, illness, and suicide. But curiously enough in the legend of Parsifal she has a most salutary effect, for,

Holy

because of her, Parsifal,

who

is

destined to find the

symbol of wholeness and completeness, resumes the spiritual journey that he had abandoned earlier in his masculine urge for adventure, conquest, and worldly success. As Robert Johnson points out, when the hideous damsel looms up in a man's psychology, it is essential that the man respond to her correctly. If he does, she becomes the instrument for setting him on his right path again; if he makes the wrong re-

2

Grail,

Robert Johnson,

ny, 1974), p. 74. 3

Ibid., p. 75.

HE!

(King of Prussia,

Pa.: Religious Publishing

Compa-

58

The

Invisible Partners

sponse, she becomes the instrument of his destruction.

The wrong response would be trying to avoid her, that is, avoiding the meaning of his depression by one of a thousand tricks: still more extraverted activities

and plans

drugs, exchanging one

woman

for

outer success,

drinking,

These are all typical ways that men have of avoiding the hideous damsel and keeping their life energies going as before. In so doing they simply heap psychological sin on psychological sin and turn the anima still more against them. But if a man will accept his dark moods as a call to find his soul, and complete his journey to become a whole person, the anima changes and becomes his ally. Much the same thing sometimes happens to women when they reach those mysterious and difficult middle years of life. At this point in her life a woman may have fulfilled earlier feminine goals. She has her husband, her home, and her children, who are now grown or nearly grown. But instead of being content she may become depressed and feel unfulfilled. The problem lies with the animus, who is now acting like a devil, and is telling her that everything she has done so far in life adds up to nothing, or, speaking through her mouth, he bores other people to distraction with banal generalizations. If she is not to fall under the domination of this devil, she must undergo a journey for spiritual life and development. There are no choices: Either she develops now in a new way, and expands into the world of logos, spirit, and mind, or she falls more and more under the domination of an animus figure who has turned peevish and cruel. So while there is a dark side to the anima and animus it would seem as though it is this dark side that can set us on our path to wholeness again. The dark, negative side of these inner figures becomes greater the more it is ignored. We help ourselves best when we turn toward the anima and animus, not away from them, and undergo a new psychological development that will take them into account. For a man, this may mean a renewed respect for the world of the heart, for relationships, for the soul, and for the search for meaning. For a woman this may mean a renewed journey into the world of spirit, of understanding, and a new kind of involvement with the world beyond the family. Thus even the dark sides of the Invisible Partners seem to serve the purposes of

life.

Of

for another.

course the stakes are high.

To

ig-

Chapter Three nore them, or to

have undesirable

fail

what

to understand

59 is

required of us, will

results, but, conversely, to recognize the reality

of these inner figures, and to go in the direction in which they is to be on the path to a new development. The first step in freeing oneself from the negative effects of the anima and animus is to recognize the problem. For a man, this means recognizing that his moods, compulsive sexual

point,

fantasies,

and

have

insatiable restlessness

ure as their source. For a

woman

opinions and destructive criticisms

this

dark feminine

means recognizing that suddenly come

it

fig-

that the into her

consciousness have the inner figure of the animus behind them.

For both men and women, of course, it means withdrawing the from actual human beings. Projections are integrated by being made conscious. As we have suggested earlier, we cannot keep projections from occurring; they happen quite spontaneously and are not subject to our conscious control. But we can learn to recognize that a projection has occurred; whenever a man or woman fascinates us we can be projections of these figures

sure that a projected content of the unconscious

is

their all-too-human reality people are not fascinating;

at

work. In

it is

the ar-

chetypal figures of the unconscious that are fascinating. Recog-

when they occur makes it possible become aware of the anima/animus figures who stand

nizing fascinating projections for us to

behind these projections.

may

be what the anima and animus want. It is though they project themselves outside of us onto suitable people because they want to be recognized, and that is the only way they can reach us. As already noted, the most common way for the anima to claim a man's attention is to fill his mind with a powerful sexual-erotic fantasy, and, similarly, it is the animus who lies behind many a woman's sexual-erotic fantasy about a man. It is as though the inner figures are trying in this way to get our attention. Once the anima and animus are recognized, a great work of psychological differentiation of the personality can begin. For instance, a man can begin to separate his moods from his feelings. His moods are from the anima; the feelings are his own. As we have seen, if a man expresses his feelings in relationship, he does not fall into moods. So, to free himself from the clutches of his In

as

fact, this

The

60

Invisible Partners

man must learn to relate to his feelings, and to express them in human relationships when the situation calls for it. In this way he comes out of the Mother and develops his eros side. Again we see the odd fact: The anima, who can be so negative, facilitates a man's psychological development when he takes her into account; because of her a man is forced to become conscious anima, a

of his affective side. Similarly with the animus. In order to fight against the negative

judgments of the animus, a

value what

is

woman must come to know and When the animus says that woman needs to recognize these

truly important to her.

this or that is of

no

value, the

thoughts and challenge them. She needs to find her own ground and stand firmly on it, to value her feminine feelings and eros and not allow the animus, with his sweeping condemnations, to rob

her of her self-value. In accomplishing this task, a for the first time,

discover what

is

woman may,

truly important to her.

As we have

seen, the negative animus resembles an inferior, and prejudiced man; his sweeping judgments and banal opinions come from his ignorance. So a woman may need to sit down with her animus and say, "This is the way it is, and this is what is important to me. You are not to keep telling me to the contrary." Obviously, in order to do this she must first know what is important to her. In this way, the animus can have the positive effect of helping a woman become conscious of her true

ill-informed,

values.

She must also find out what he wants. As we noted, the anima and animus live through us, and the lives we lead must have room in them for these archetypal figures and their life energy. For a man this means that his life must include warm and meaningful human relationships, and the area of the heart, for the anima and the feminine always stand on the side of a man's heart. For a woman this means that her life must include a certain fulfillment in the area of goals, aspirations, spirit, and mind. When we talk with the anima and animus we must regard them as the autonomous psychological realities that they are. Indeed, working with them requires us to overcome what C. G. Jung once called the "monotheism of consciousness," and recognize that our personalities are made up not only of consciousness, but of a multitude of lesser or partial personalities as well.

Chapter Three

A great darkness exists today belief that only the ego

and

61

in this regard, for its

world

we

persist in the

exist, in spite

of the evi-

dence all around us that human beings are readily possessed by they-know-not-what within them. Jung wrote, "we lack knowledge of the unconscious psyche and pursue the cult of consciousness to the exclusion of all

of consciousness,

.

.

.

else.

Our

true religion

is

a monotheism

coupled with a fanatical denial that there

4 are parts of the psyche which are autonomous."

It is

because the psyche

partial personalities that

it is

not an indication that one

more one comes

is

is

made up

of these autonomous,

possible to talk to oneself. This

crazy;

it is

is

just the opposite, for the

into a conscious relationship with the different

parts of oneself the

more

there

is

promoted from within a synthe-

and harmonization of the personality. A man who wishes to anima might begin by addressing himself to a mood that has engulfed him and from which he cannot extricate himself. This can be done by personifying the mood in his imagination and talking to it. This is not difficult because most psychic contents, especially the anima and the animus, appear in a personified form in our dreams and fantasies. What would you like to say to a mood that has engulfed you and will not go away? Whatever that might be, write it down, just as though you were writing to an actual person. Then imagine what that personified mood would say in response. Whatever comes into your mind would be the reply. Do not stop to question whether or not this is "legitimate," but simply write down what the personified mood says. This may call forth another response from you, with a second reply from the personified mood, and so a dialogue ensues. sis

talk with his

The value of writing down the dialogue is that it gives it reality, makes a record of the conversation that can be referred to later, and strengthens the hand of the ego in its dealings with the powerful feminine numen. In actual practice, an anima mood is usually quite willing to 5

4

Secret of the Golden Flower, p. 111.

5

This technique of dialoguing with the anima or animus

is

part of

what C.

G. Jung called "active imagination." Jung has described this method of relating to the unconscious in various places. See also the Appendix on active imagination at the back of this book.

62

The resembles a

talk. It

ward

Invisible Partners

woman who

responds positively to a

move

to-

from her man, but becomes dark and unpleasant when ignored. It is characteristic of the feminine to want attention and to resent being ignored. Indeed, one begins to feel that the fantastic and dangerous machinations of the anima are designed from the beginning for the sole purpose of getting the man's attention, and compelling him to relate to her as his inner relationship

woman

When

or soul.

effects of the

this is done, as

anima begin

to give way,

we

shall see, the negative

and the

positive manifesta-

tions tend to appear.

Dialoguing with the animus

is

as natural as with the anima.

The former tends first

as

When

a

to be more verbal, and is usually recognized at autonomous thoughts appearing in a woman's mind.

woman

begins to recognize that these thoughts

come

from the animus and not from her ego, she begins to make the important distinction between herself and the male factor within her. Sometimes it helps to start by carefully noting the kinds of things the animus is saying, usually characterized, as we have seen, by "shoulds" and "oughts" and judgments of one sort or another.

As

suggested in chapter two,

it

often helps to write these

down and

put quotation marks around them to emphasize the fact that these do not represent a woman's own thinking but the opinions of the animus. for a

woman

Then

it is

only a simple step beyond this

to reply to the voice of the animus. In this

way she

can challenge his opinions, disagree with him, and educate him about her true feelings and the actual situation. Writing down the ensuing dialogue strengthens a woman's ego, for taking up pen or pencil to write is the ego's work. Once such a dialogue is begun, the animus may go on to tell a woman what it is that he really wants out of life. When this happens the chances for a positive relationship between a

woman and

her animus are greatly in-

creased.

The key word in coming to terms with the anima and the animus is relationship. Anima and animus are archetypal figures, which means they do not simply go away and disappear from one's life, but act like permanent partners with whom we must find some way of relating no matter how difficult they may be. But relationship makes all the difference. When a figure of the unconscious

is

denied, rejected, or ignored,

it

turns against us

Chapter Three

When

63

and shows

its

negative side.

related to,

its

positive side tends to appear.

it is

accepted, understood, and

But at the same time that a man learns to dialogue with the anima, and a woman with the animus, men and women must also learn to dialogue with each other. It should be obvious by now that a relationship with a

member

of the opposite sex

is

of great

value in working out the anima and animus problem, and, con-

good rapport with our anima and animus is of woking out our human relationships. Just as a dialogue with the anima or animus will help us to distinguish what belongs to the ego and what belongs to the unconscious figures, versely, that a

great value in

so a dialogue with the

man

or

woman

in

our

life will

help us to

understand and appreciate our differences and each other's true personality. Only through dialogue can two human beings begin

own, and the other person's, reality. Such dialogue, which consists of stating in one way or another one's own feelings and thoughts, and then listening carefully to what the other person is saying, is greatly facilitated when the anima and animus are out of the picture. If these Invisible Partners are intruding into the sphere of the relationship, then moods, affects, opinions, and judgments will cloud the atmosphere, leading to distortions, recriminations, and the kind of anima/animus quarto see their

rel that

So

has been described. if

a

man

wishes to

come

to a

rapprochement with

his

feminine side he also needs to understand the personality of the

important

woman in his life, and a woman, conversely, needs to man and his thoughts and feelings. Men and

understand her

women

think and feel differently; their mental processes are not and a relationship between the sexes requires that we understand the differences that separate us. When we do there are salutary results, one of which is a broadening of consciousness. When a man understands something of a woman, his masculine consciousness is expanded and his personality enriched. This broadening of consciousness defeats the negative aspects of the anima and animus and puts these inner partners in their psychologically correct place, which Jung repeatedly tells us is within and alike

not without.

This brings us to another of Jung's definitions of the anima

and animus: They personify the

collective

unconscious, and

64

The

Invisible Partners

therefore their true psychological purpose

is

to be a function of

relationship between the ego

build a bridge, as

it

and the collective unconscious, to were, between the world of consciousness and

the world of inner images.

This

Jung's most

common

anima and one of his earliest studies, in which he says that the function of the animus (and the same would be true of the anima) "is ... to facilitate relations with the unconscious." 6 And in his commentary on the ancient Chinese book The Secret of the Golden Flower he said, "I have defined the anima in man as a personification of the unconscious in general, and have therefore taken it to be a bridge to the unconscious, that 7 is, to be a function of relationship to the unconscious." It also occurs in Man and His Symbols, in which Jung's colleague and disciple Marie-Louise von Franz states, "The anima is a personiis

animus.

He

offers

fication

of

all

it

definition of the

to us in

feminine psychological tendencies in a man's

psyche, such as vague feelings and moods, to the

Practically speaking, this

what

.

.

.

and

... his relation

unconscious"*

means

that if a

man

will look at

behind his moods, affects, fantasies, and emotions, those spontaneous psychic events which form the background to his consciousness and which the anima brings to him, he will arrive at what is going on in his unconscious personality. It is as though the anima becomes contaminated with everything within lies

man which wants to reach consciousness. man can take the anima as an inner figure, he a

Consequently,

if

a

arrives at those ar-

chetypal images which form the foundation of his personality.

This

is

difficult for

modern man

to understand because

we

do not take the reality of the inner world seriously; in people have no idea that there

is

fact, most an inner world. Since we have

no inkling of the inner world, the highly personified figures of the anima and animus appear to us on the outside, where they complicate relationships and create illusions, in the projected manner discussed, and begin to malfunction by creating moods and generating opinions.

CWl,p.201.

6

Jung,

7

Jung, The Secret of the Golden Flower,

8

Jung,

Man and His Symbols,

p. 119.

p. 177. Italics

mine.

Chapter Three

65

An

evil condition develops when any part of an organism perform its proper role, and instead usurps a role that does not belong to it. For instance, the intellect becomes evil if, instead of serving the whole person by performing its particular function of discrimination, it usurps the wholeness of the personfails to

by dominating and excluding other aspects of the psyche. So the anima and animus also become embroiled with evil when they are not in the correct place. Jung wrote, "The reason for this perversion is clearly the failure to give adequate recognition to an inner world which stands autonomously opposed to the outer world, and makes just as serious demands on our capacity for adality

aptation."

To

9

perceive the reality of the anima and animus thus re-

which is why Jung referred anima or animus as the "master piece" In the first place, we must overcome the ten-

quires considerable conscious effort, to the encounter with the

of individuation. 10

dency to think of ourselves as exclusively masculine or feminine; for

many

people this in

itself

represents a revolution in thinking.

But then we must go further and realize that our conscious life rests on the vast sea of an inner world of which we know very little. We must realize that this inner world is as real and as objective to our conscious standpoint as is the outer world of physical reality, for this dimension of the unconscious would exist whether we existed or not, just as the outer world exists whether or not a given

human

individual exists.

It is this

objectively real inner

world that Jung calls the collective unconscious; it would have been called the spiritual world by early Christians, or personified as a mythological world of spirit beings by the American Indians. It is also this world to which the anima and animus can relate us when they have been withdrawn from projections world and taken back into our inner world.

When

in the outer

the anima functions in her correct place, she serves to

broaden and enlarge a man's consciousness, and to enrich his personality by infusing into him, through dreams, fantasies, and inspired ideas, an awareness of an inner world of psychic images and life-giving emotions. A man's consciousness tends to be too 9

10

Jung, Jung,

CW1, p. 208. CW9, l,p. 29.

66

The

focused and concentrated;

Invisible Partners

becomes

and constricted, and, without contact with the unconscious, becomes dry and sterile. Jung wrote, "If the products of the anima (dreams, fantasies, visions, symptoms, chance ideas, etc.) are assimilated, digested, and integrated, this has a beneficial effect on the growth and development of the psyche." 11 Masculine consciousness has been likened to the sun, and feminine consciousness to the moon. At noon everything is seen in bright outline and one thing is clearly differentiated from another. But no one can stand too much of this hot, bright sun. Without the cool, the moist, the dark, the landscape soon becomes unbearable, and the earth dries up and will not produce life. That is the way a man's life becomes without the fertilizing influence on him of the feminine. Without a relationship to his inner .

.

it

easily

rigid

.

man

can focus, but lacks imagination; he can pursue he can strive for power, but is unable to be creative because he cannot produce new life out of himself. world, a

goals, but lacks emotion;

Only the

fruitful joining

up

of the Yin principle to the

Yang

princi-

can prevent his consciousness from becoming sterile, and his masculine power from drying up. So the anima mediates to a man invaluable psychological ple can stir

his energies,

qualities that make him alive. For this reason, at various times Jung has also defined the anima as "the archetype of life," and once said that she is "an allurement to the intensification of 12 life." She is like soul to a man, that elusive but vital ingredient that alone makes life worth living and gives to a man a sense of something worth striving for. It is the anima who gives a man heart, enabling him to be strong of heart and courageous in the face of life's burdens and afflictions. As the archetype of life, the anima contains the element of meaning. It is not that she has the answers; rather, she embodies within herself the secret of life, and helps a man discover it by leading him to a knowledge of his own soul. "Something strangely meaningful clings to her." Jung wrote, "a secret knowledge or hidden wisdom, which contrasts most curiously with her irra1

11

C. G. Jung,

CW 14, Mysterium

Coniunctionis; (Princeton, N.J.: Prince-

ton University Press, 1963; 2nd printing 1974), 12

Jung, Letters

2, p.

423.

p. 308.

Chapter Three tional elfin nature."

67

And, he added, when a man comes

with the anima he comes to realize that "behind sporting with

human

more

the

this

to grips

her cruel

something like a hidden pura superior knowledge of life's laws

fate there lies

pose which seems to reflect

And

all

meaning

is

recognized, the

more the anima

impetuous and compulsive character." 13 As a personifi-

loses her

cation of

the

life,

anima

personifies for a

man

"the

life

consciousness that cannot be completely integrated with

from which

.

.

consciousness arises," and

.

priori element in (a man's)

ever else

is

it,

but

always the a

moods, reactions, impulses, and what-

spontaneous in psychic

We must

"it is

behind

life."

14

anima is "good." The good nor bad; she just is. She wants life, and so she seems to want both good and bad, or, rather, she is not concerned with these moral categories. That is why working with the anima is always a delicate matter. One can no more deliver oneself over to the anima lock stock and barrel than one can surrender the whole of oneself to any particular psychological function or quality. It is also the anima who seems to arouse a man's caanima

is

not, however, think that the

neither

pacity for love.

When we

first fall in

powerful, life-giving emotions. This

is

love

why

we

are flooded with

the anima can best be

described poetically and not scientifically, dramatically and not concretely. Yet, as we have seen, a man's relationship with her must develop beyond the mere sensation of falling or being in love, as he must come to perceive that the life-giving feminine soul is within himself. He cannot afford to let his anima live only in projection onto a woman, but must reach beyond this projection to search for the soul within himself. Jung said, in a letter to a woman who was carrying a man's projected soul image for him, "Since he is unable to see you as a real woman behind his projection, you seem to be a 'sphinx.' In reality his soul is his sphinx, and he should try to solve the riddle." 15 It is not, however, that the anima does the loving inside of a man. She is not identical with his eros, but arouses his eros. She awakens in a man his capacity for love and personal relationship,

15

u 15

Jung,

CW9,

1,

pp. 30

Ibid., p. 27.

Jung, Letters

2, p.

402.

and 31

68

The

but she

who

is

loves

Invisible Partners

not that love and personal relationship.

and

feels,

not his anima, though she

may

It is

the

man

be likened to

the spark that ignites his flame.

one that James Hillman takes up in his two and 1974 issues of Spring. Jung often referred to the anima as though she were identical with eros, and many Jungian analysts speak of the anima as though she were identical with feeling, as if feeling and eros were necessarily feminine and not masculine. Yet the Greek god Eros is himself a masculine deity, even though he is Aphrodite's son, and there is no good reason for ascribing feeling only to the feminine. It seems more accurate to say that the anima is a function that This

articles

last

point

is

on the anima

in the 1973

arouses and constellates eros in a man, but that there thing as masculine eros as well as feminine eros. That

saying that

nine

may

it is

the

man

is

is

such a

a

way of

himself who loves, even though the femi-

arouse his love. In the same way, there

son for identifying the anima with

is

feeling, or the

no good reaanimus with

A man can feel, and a woman can think, although the anima and the animus may arouse, aid, and direct these functhinking.

tions.

Another point of confusion in this regard is whether or not there is any such thing as "anima development." Jungians often speak of anima development in a man as though it were the man's task to "develop his anima" so he could relate, feel, and love more deeply. Jung himself speaks of four stages of the anima: as Eve, as Helen of Troy, as the Virgin Mary, and as Sophia. The first, Eve, is anima on the lowest, biological level, as the source of instinct and the instigator of sexuality. As Helen of Troy the anima personifies beauty and the soul, and is no longer completely equated with instinctuality.

As

the Virgin

personifies the possibility of relationship with

God, and

Mary

she

as Sophia

she embodies the principle of relationship to the highest wis-

dom. 16 Undoubtedly the anima can appear on many different levels; the question is whether it is the anima who develops or the man who develops. The Greeks spoke of Aphrodite Pandemos and 16

C. G. Jung,

CW 16,

The Practice of Psychotherapy (New York: Pantheon

Books, 1954, revised and augmented 1966),

p. 174.

Chapter Three

69

Aphrodite Ouranos. The former was "Aphrodite for everyone" and the latter was the "heavenly or spiritual Aphrodite." Aphrodite

Pandemos would be Aphrodite

as experienced

Experienced

sexual, instinctual union.

this

in

on the

level of

way. Aphrodite

would personify the anima as she appears in sexual erotic fantasies and instinctual urges. But the spiritual Aphrodite personifies the anima as the function that relates a man's soul to God, and helps him achieve the highest possible spiritual union. However, m my view it is not the anima who undergoes a "development," but the man himself who must undergo a development. If a man's character and understanding are at a low. unconscious level, he will experience the anima on her lowest level, and not be able to understand or appreciate her higher qualities. But

man

the

if

undergoes development and acquires "soul," the anima

in

her highest manifestations can become meaningful to him.

Another point

with regard to the anima

at issue

is

whether

she can ever be "conquered" and depersonified. or whether she

always retains her elusive personified nature. Jung often spoke of

anima as though she were a being who personified herself in a most irritating way and who had to be conquered and transformed into an impersonal psychological function. For instance. the

Two Essays on Analytical Psychology he wrote. that there is some psychic factor (the anima) active in

eludes

my

conscious will

m

put extraordinary ideas into

"I recognize in

me which

the most incredible manner.

my

head, induce in

It

can

me unwanted

and unwelcome moods and emotions, lead me to astonishing actions for which I can accept no responsibility, upset my relations with other people in a very irritating way. against this fact and. what all I

can do It is

is

is

worse,

I

am

etc.

in love

I

feel

with

powerless it.

so that

marvel." 17

anima can have all of these disman must "conquer" is himmean that he must not allow this be-

perfectly true that the

turbing effects on a man, yet what a self,

although

this will also

and deceptive feminine creature within himself to seduce him. If he succeeds in "bottling up" the anima. that is, not allowing her to run his outer life, dominate his moods, and destroy his relationships, then, as we have seen, the anima tends to take her guiling

Jung.

CW-.

P p 225-226.

The

70

Invisible Partners

proper place as a function within him, leading him into a deeper experience of his own soul. Yet the anima seems to stubbornly resist

being depersonified. She remains the personification, as Hill-

man man

of a powerful feminine numen. For this reason, Hill-

puts

it,

sees

no value

the anima. In fact, self in

in trying to it is

break up the personifications of

precisely because she does personify her-

our dreams and imagination that we can achieve a related-

ness to her.

Moreover, Hillman points out,

if

we

persist in trying to con-

quer the anima, and force her to be what we want her to puts the ego in a "heroic stance," that stance that

is

is,

be, this

reinforces a masculine

certain to result in a continued devaluation of the

feminine and exaggeration of the ego. Jung himself, in other

seems to concede that the anima is irreducibly a personiOf both anima and animus he wrote, "It is not we who personify them; they have a personal nature from the very

places,

fied figure.

beginning." ls

The anima

as the bridge

between a man's consciousness and

the world of the unconscious can be contrasted with the function

of the persona in masculine psychology.

mask.

It

The word persona means

denotes the front or face that the ego presents to the out-

er world.

The persona

is

thus a function of relationship between

the ego and outer reality, just as the anima tionship between the ego and inner reality.

is

the function of rela-

The persona

is

a use-

even essential, psychological function. Without a certain

ful,

amount of persona we can scarcely carry on in life. It is not only a mask behind which we can hide, it is also a means of adaptation to outer reality. Without any persona it would be very difficult to relate to the demands that come to us from other people, our work, and society in general. The difficulty comes when someone identifies with the persona. Then they think they are that front they present to the outer world, and they lose awareness of their true reality, especially of the dark, ity.

When

they go through

The anima 11

shadow

side of their personal-

people identify with the persona, they are not

C. G. Jung,

life

real;

with a face, but no inner depth.

stands in a compensatory relationship to this per-

CW 13, Alchemical Studies; (Princeton, N.J.:

versity Press, 1967, 1970 edition), par. 62.

Princeton Uni-

Chapter Three sona. If

we

are too identified with

react accordingly.

Only

if

we have

it.

71

we can

expect the anima to

the correct relationship to the

persona can we have the correct relationship to the anima. We can think, for instance, of a powerful tyrant a Nero or a Hit-

—

—

whose mere word affects the whose power in the world of outer

ler

that he

is

lives

of

many

reality leads

and

people,

him

an all-powerful person. But inwardly such a

to believe

man may

be beset by fearsome and dark fantasies over which he has no control. His soul is possessed by frightening fears: he sees threats in every corner,

and he

is

troubling thoughts, just as

helpless in the presence of dark

King Saul was

and

helpless in the fa.

:

moods/ The Roman Emperor Caligula

his evil

is a good example. Caligula was so ruthless and identified with his power that he is said to have reminded guests at his banquets that he could have them all killed at any time, and is reputed to have said to his wife or mistress while embracing her. "Off comes this beautiful head whenever I give the word.'* :: Yet it is also said of him that "he hid under the bed when it thundered, and fled in terror from the sight of Aetna's flames. He found it hard to sleep and would wander through his enormous palace at night crying for the dawn." It is the anima who sends these troubling, fear-laden fantasies into the moods of such a man. who inspires the sleepless nights and vague feelings of foreboding, and he is as helpless in the face of them as :

-

he

is

way

all-powerful in his dealings with the outer world. In this the

anima compensates

a faulty one-sidedness in his charac-

ter.

Or perhaps

it is a powerful business executive, whose decimany, around whom obedient secretaries hover. and who is played up to by insecure subordinates. He lives in a world of tall buildings with elaborate offices, padded expense accounts, and important people on the board. Yet inwardly he may be victimized by vague fears and controlled by compulsive sexual fantasies, which may compel him to visit the pornographic movies on his way home or have call girls visit him in a motel. It is

sions influence

I :;

:

Sam. 18:10-11.

Suetonius, Gains, quoted in Will Durant's Caesar Ibid., p. 265.

and Chnst.

r

The

72 the

anima who

is

him from within

Invisible Partners

behind these fears and

as completely as he,

fantasies,

on the

and she

rules

outside, rules others.

once again, the message of the hideous maiden, as seen in Robert Johnson's analysis of the Grail Legend. Parisfal, the great outer hero and master of the world of knights, is helpless to oppose the hideous maiden, the image of his anima, who has gone dark on him because, in his concentration on outer success, It is,

he has neglected his inner journey. But if it appears at first as though negative figure, possessing a

come thoughts tion of a

much

man

or fantasies, this

it is

the anima

who

is

the

with uncontrollable and unwel-

is

only the superficial manifesta-

deeper problem. She really has a positive, not a

and serves to bring a man away from a path in himself and his highest values; to lead him back to the path of wholeness and spiritual development. She is serving a constructive function, not a destructive one, and as soon as she is properly recognized and appreciated her positive aspect appears. Even in her negative aspect she remains true to herself and her basic function: the bridge to the unconscious, and to the world of a man's soul. negative, function, life

that

is

false to

In his positive aspect the animus plays an indispensable role

woman's individuation process. His main function is to be a psychopomp, a guide who leads a woman through her inner world to her soul. In dreams, the animus, as guide and creative spirit, typically appears as a gifted man, a priest, teacher, doctor, god, or a man with unusual powers. Again it is essential, if the positive aspect of the animus is to emerge, that he assume his proper function as a bridge between a woman's consciousness and her unconscious inner world; if he functions only on the outside he assumes the negative forms that have been discussed. As Jung once said, "In his real form he (the animus) is a hero, there is something divine about him" but when not in his real form he 22 is "an opinionating substitute." The creative animus blazes a trail for a woman; he does things first that she must later undertake for herself. He leads the way, and opens up a line of development. This can sometimes be in a

C. G. Jung,

"The

Interpretation of Visions," Spring, 1966,

p. 143.

Chapter Three

73

seen in a woman's dreams in which a man undertakes a journey, overcomes a danger, or endures a difficulty a task to which the woman herself will soon be called. Jung notes, in commenting on a woman's vision in which the animus seemed to be performing a heroic function, "It is the motif we have encountered many times

—

before: always

when some new

enterprise that she cannot face be-

comes necessary, the animus precedes her." 23 Just as the anima often first appears to a man in projection onto an outer woman, or in the form of powerful sexual-erotic fantasies, so the animus also typically manifests himself to a woman in powerful fantasies or projections. If this numinous image is not taken psychologically, and recognized as a figure of her inner world, he readily becomes what Esther Harding called the "ghostly lover." 24 As the ghostly lover the animus haunts a woman's mind, seduces her into unreal romantic fantasies, and absorbs her consciousness more and more into unreality. No psychological development can then take place, for the

woman

becomes lost in love fantasies that are not related to the reality of an actual man, nor to the reality of her inner world. It is not, however, the animus who is at fault. He is trying his best to attract her attention by means of these powerful fantasies; it is the woman herself whose consciousness must develop and mature so she

life

capable of understanding her fantasies in the correct way.

is

The way

story of Jane in the

first

chapter

is

a good illustration of the

in which the animus as ghostly lover can upset a woman's and lead her into unreality. In his positive aspect, the animus embodies the driving force

for individuation in a

woman's psyche.

An

excellent illustration

Emily Bronte's novel Wuthering Heights, which has The most striking figure in this tale is Heathcliff, who appears to be part man and part devil, and whose one driving goal in life is to unite with his beloved Cathy. However, Cathy, though she loves him deeply in her soul, resists him and betrays her truest feelings by marrying the innocuous and ineffective Edgar Linton. Heathcliff is not deterred, however, and of this

is

in

already been mentioned.

:

Ibid., p. 129.

24

Esther Harding, The

Inc., 1933, 1961),

chap.

2.

Way of All Women (New York: David McKay

Co.,

74

The

Invisible Partners

persists in his efforts to unite with Cathy,

even though this results

in a conflict in her so great that, unwilling to bear ill

and

The

dies.

named Cathy,

it,

she becomes

story then continues with Cathy's daughter, also

as the heroine.

The younger Cathy

is

persecuted

by the increasingly morose Heathcliff. However, unare destroyed under Heathcliff s persecution, the younger Cathy grows stronger. Eventually she marries Hareton, and as she works out her relationship with Hareton, Heathcliff withdraws more and more from the story until finally he unites in death with his Cathy. Thus at the end of the story there is a double marriage: the earthly pair, Catherine and Hareton, and the spirit couple, Heathcliff and Cathy. In her brilliant analysis of the story, Barbara Hannah 25 points out that Heathcliff is a personification of the animus, and describes the way he functions in the psychology of a woman. He relentlessly

like others

is

who

a seemingly ruthless figure

story, but

he

is

not blind

who

destroys

evil, for in

many

people in the

the end he proves to be the

very force that leads to psychological development. Because of

him

the

weak and

are destroyed and only those

who become

strong

through his persistent efforts that, in the end of the story, there is the double marriage that is a symbol of wholeness. Thus in Heathcliff we can see how the animus can appear to be demonic, yet in fact he contains in himself the mainspring for individuation and proves to be a relentless force that compels a woman to rid herself of weak, childish feelings and develop the survive,

it is

true strength of her character. Heathcliff s relentless desire for

union with Cathy

analogous to the relentless urge from within

is

woman's personality, a process that the animus makes possible and even seems to insist on. Jung first equated the animus with a woman's soul, just as he equated the anima with a man's soul. In "The Psychology of for the unification of a

the Transference," he wrote, "It will be clear .

.

.

ter in the

woman." 26

soul has been disputed by disciples.

25

For instance,

Hannah,

"Jung,

Striving

CW 16, p.

.

.

.

that the 'soul'

man and

a masculine characHowever, this identification of animus with

has a feminine character in the

many

of Jung's

Emma Jung,

Towards Wholeness, chap. 301.

women

colleagues and

Barbara Hannah, and Irene

10.

Chapter Three de Castillejo

all

argue that the soul

75

woman

in

is

feminine just as

it

man, and that animus is not to be identified with soul, but with spirit. According to this way of thinking, the animus is not is

in

the soul, but leads a

woman

to

her soul.

It is

for this reason that

he has the value of a psychopomp, a guide, or one

who

points or

leads the way."

One helpful function the positive animus gives to a woman is power of discrimination. Jung wrote that in feminine psychology "we are not dealing with a function of relationship (as with the anima) but, on the contrary, with a discriminative function, Thus he virtually identified the animus namely the animus. with logos and the anima with eros, with, however, the misleading intimation that the animus was thereby identical with thinking in a woman, and the anima with feeling in a man. We have althe

:

-

ready seen that this herself

—

has his

own

feelings

Jung did not

much

less

is

not the case

—

that a

woman

thinks for

—

who thinks for her and that a man and his own capacity for love. Yet, in fact,

not the animus

it is

directly connect the

animus with logos

as such,

with thinking, nor the anima with eros, but used these

categories to give us conceptual approximations of the functions

"The animus," he wrote, "corresponds to anima corresponds to the maternal do not wish or intend to give these two intuitive con-

of these two

realities.

the paternal Logos just as the Eros. But

I

cepts too specific a definition.

I

use Eros and Logos merely as

conceptual aids to describe the fact that woman's consciousness is

characterized

more by

the connective quality of Eros than by

the discrimination and cognition associated with Logos. In men, Eros, the function of relationship,

usually less developed than

is

Logos. In women, on the other hand, Eros their true nature."

The animus can

act like a guide

soul because he uses his

impersonal world of

Cf. E. Jung.

intellect

•Jung, Jung,

and

CW\6, p. 294. CW9, 2, p. 14.

who

He

leads a

woman

to her

also acts as a bridge to the

spirit,

Animus and Anima; de

nah, Striving Towards Wholeness,

:

an expression of

torch of discrimination and understand-

ing to illuminate her inner world.

: "

is

29

and gives her otherwise

Castillejo,

Knowing Woman. Han-

76

The

Invisible Partners

Asa

diffused consciousness a capacity for focused concentration.

always the case when describing the anima and animus, images are more helpful than concepts, and Irene de Castillejo gives us a helpful image of the positive animus as a "torchbearer."

It is

when

the animus, she says,

she describes him

who throws

light

on things, who enables a woman to focus her concentration, makes it possible for her to be objective, and opens up to her the world of knowledge for its own sake.

To

enough to know something quite definitely, so it and say 'This is my truth, here I take my stand,*' one needs the help of the animus himself. I personally like to think of my helpful animus as a torch-bearer: the figure of a man holding aloft his torch to light my way, throwing its beams into dark corners and penetrating the mists which shield the world of half-hidden mystery where, as a woman, I am so very much at home. In a woman's world of shadows and cosmic truths he makes a pool of light as a focus for her eyes, and as she looks she may say, *"Ah yes, that's what I mean," or **Oh no, that's not my truth at see clearly

solidly that

all." It is

one can express

with the help of this torch also that she learns to give

He

on the jumble of words hoverso that she can choose the ones she wants, separates light jnto the colours of the rainbow for her selection, enables her to see the part of which her whole is made, to discriminate between this and that. In a word, he enables

form to her

ideas.

throws

light

ing beneath the surface of her

mind

her to focus. 38

As

a

woman

begins to relate to her inner

self,

de Castillejo

meets the animus, who, by throwing his torch into the interior and meanings of things, leads her into her inner

continues, she

recesses

first

where her soul

her soul, for her soul

woman she

is

meets

first

seeking; but

is

he if

is

to be found. But. she stresses, he

feminine like her ez:

may appear

As

it is

he

to be himself the soul

she ventures with

him

is

not

whom a image

further into the dark

and unknown she may find that he does not represent her soul but is rather acting as her guide toward if

De

Castillejo,

Ibid., p. 166.

Knowing Woman, p

"

I

Chapter Three

Thus the soul

in a

scribed, perhaps, as a

a man, the soul

though

is

woman

is

11

feminine like herself, best de-

and love. For something other than himself, an elusive life

force, a source of energy

essential feminine reality that

being of his consciousness. For a

is

indispensable to the well-

woman,

the discovery of the

most essentially her own deepest, truest nature. For a man, the world of objective knowledge and impersonal goals comes naturally, while a woman needs, as it were, to be initiated into a world to which she is not subjectively related and which may come as a startling discovery. So the animus is a thrower of light. But, de Castillejo warns us, he must throw his light somewhere, and this means that the woman must use the animus function in herself correctly and creatively. "It is the woman who is not using the animus creatively who is at his mercy for he must throw his light somewhere. So he attracts her attention by throwing his light on one formula or slogan after another quite regardless of their exact relevance. She falls into the trap and accepts what he shows her as gospel soul

is

the discovery of what 7

is

truth

As with everything else in the psyche, the key word is relatThe animus is positive in his function when the woman is correctly related to him, and negative when the relationship is incorrect. The proper relationship with the animus is helped by recognition of his reality, by giving him scope in life and maintaining a dialogue with him just as if he were an inner husband. To recognize the reality of the animus is to perceive the reedness.

and autonomy of the unconscious. This always

ality

we have animus

seen, the recognition of projections

herself.

when he

is

a

is

not consciously perceived by a

woman

men

as a part of

Such a projection can be perceived as having occurred is overvalued or undervalued, and especially when

man

seen to be fascinating.

tion of the

man

man

creasing discomfort, in the give the

Ibid., p. 80.

It

can also be recognized by the reacis so egocentric that he

himself because, unless he

feeds on such things, the

To

occur; the

particularly likely to project himself onto outer

is

when he

requires, as

when they

animus

will react to a projection with in-

manner already

reality

and

his

described.

proper place

in

life,

a

The

78

woman must

have a

life

Invisible Partners

that includes him.

As we have

the anima, the inner figures of the unconscious

and they can do

this

only through our

nores the objective side of

life,

her intellectual and spiritual

and

side,

lives.

all

seen with

want

A woman

especially the

to live,

who

ig-

development of

can expect to have a frustrated

animus who becomes troublesome and devilish as a consequence. She often needs to have something in her life outside of the personal realm of family, husband, or lover. In this isfy the

animus. However,

it

way she can

should be noted that

if

a

sat-

woman

goes too far in this matter she runs the danger of becoming too

She may pursue masculine goals in the world and develop the life of her intellect in academic and professional pursuits only if she maintains an awareness of herself as a person with a feminine soul who also embodies a mascuidentified with the animus.

line principle.

Keeping a distinction between herself as woman and soul, and the animus as masculine discriminatory power, is greatly aided by the process of dialogue, a process already mentioned as a way in which a man can relate to his anima. The animus is often first noticed by a woman as a "voice" within her, that is, as an autonomous train of thoughts and ideas that flow into her consciousness. This autonomous stream of thoughts and ideas can be personified as her inner man and a dialogue can be cultivated with him. In this dialogue points out,

if

a

woman

it is

very helpful, Irene de Castillejo

keeps the animus informed about

how

she

about things. The animus will be quite ready to intrude with his opinions and ideas and plans, and can be ruthless in trying to bring them about. The woman must be firm with him, and carefeels

fully instruct

him

in

how

she feels and what her needs and desires

are. In describing the case

ed that the animus was

of one

"positive

woman,

Irene de Castillejo not-

and helpful so long

as the

wom-

an took the precaution of informing him how she, as woman, felt about the matters in hand and only became negative when she failed to do so. For then, being deprived of the essential data of her feeling he had no alternative but to voice the general truths of the day." 33

Again and again Ibid., p. 168.

in matters of the

psyche we realize that

Chapter Three

when we

are correctly and consciously related to our inner

79 fig-

ures they tend to assume their proper role and function, and

when we

unaware of them, and do not have a correct relaand disrupt our lives. So it is with the animus, who "is a woman's greatest friend when he shines his light on what is relevant, and turns foe the moment he are

tionship, they tend to possess us

lapses into irrelevance." 34

Ibid., p. 80.

E&xstjDtfQtf

\?®m

That mysterious life force which we call sexuality is both complicated and enriched by the Invisible Partners. We have already seen how the anima and animus are frequently projected onto members of the opposite sex, and how, when a person carries for us such a projected image, sexual feelings and fantasies are likely to be aroused. This is because the archetypes of the anima and animus are so numinous, that is, so charged with psychic energy that they grip us emotionally, and this energy usually affects us first on the sexual level. The kind of magnetic sexual attraction we may feel when the anima or animus is projected in this manner leads to powerful psychological tion, in the

ties

with the person

manner we have

who

described,

is

carrying that projec-

and

this

phenomenon

is

often disturbing to a long-term relationship such as marriage.

anima and animus seldom remain on a person, whose ordinary humanity becomes evident under the stress and strain of daily life, and for this reason the projections of the anima or animus will usually fall on persons outside of the marriage relationship, which may prove to be a disturbing factor. Numinosity, discovery, adventure, and curiosity usually enliven the initial relationship with members of the opposite sex, but as they begin to wear off, sexual life between a man and wom-

The

projections of the

80

Chapter Four

81

an can become routine, and sexual desires and fantasies may revolve around other people. People who lack psychological understanding may then suppose that they no longer love their mates, 1

now "in love" with someone else. Others, especialwho have been raised in a strict religious tradition that

since they are ly

those

has educated them to treat their fantasies as though they were, in themselves, sins,

may

be horrified at their fantasies and try to

re-

and guilt. Still others, who lack a certain stamina, may want moral to cast aside a marriage relationship that is being threatened with boredom, rather than to work on it, thinking that the new and fascinating relationship is now "it," and that if only they can possess the object of their sexual desires

them out of

press

fear

they will be happy.

As Adolf Guggenbuhl-Craig

has pointed out, : this

where marriage

ularly likely to occur in our culture, in terms of

what he

To view marriage

calls

is

is

partic-

perceived

"well-being" rather than "salvation."

terms of well-being means that we marry

in

with the thought that this will lead us to happiness, satisfaction,

and a

feeling of peace

and plenitude. To view marriage

of salvation means that

we

in

see marriage as one possible path to

self-knowledge and individuation. In marriage two people

up against each

terms

bump

other's areas of unconsciousness. This affords

both people an opportunity to become aware of personal qualities or habits that they see only

when

their partners in the experience

of daily living object to them.

Such a relationship provides an excellent container in which individuation can occur, for people who can work through areas :

Fortunately for sexual

life in

marriage, there are certain advantages to the

married or permanent relationship when

manent

it

comes

to sexual fulfillment. In a per-

relationship, for instance, a couple has an opportunity to learn about

each other as sexual partners, to discover what pleases each other, and to become adept at being a lover well-suited for his or her partner. It is also impor-

and relatedness image of the anima and

tant that in a long-term relationship the factor of personal love

may more

than

make up

for the fact that the projected

animus no longer surrounds one's partner. keep their fantasies alive

in their sexual

other and expressing them in their love vital part :

If,

life,

of the relationship.

Adolf Guggenbuhl-Craig, Marriage

in addition, a

married couple can

perhaps sharing them with each sexuality in marriage can remain a

life,

—Dead or

(Zurich: Spring Publications, 1977), pp. 36fT.

Alive, trans.

Murray

Stein

The

82

Invisible Partners

of unconsciousness in their

life

together can mature in their ca-

pacity to love and relate to another

marriage only when

have the

it

intestinal fortitude to

ences, but

if

we

human

work through

these painful experi-

learn to value marriage because of the opportuni-

ties it offers for salvation

—that

is,

individuation

other blessings, our marriage relationship

its

we value we will not

being. If

offers us a sense of well-being,

is

—

as well as for

on a more

solid

footing.

However, the question

will remain:

How

are

we

to regard

fantasies about another person outside of our marriage that

be inspired by the projections it

we have

discussed? It

is

may

clear that

can be destructive to be pulled into such fantasies without any

conscious regard for their underlying meaning. But it can be equally unfortunate if an overly developed conscience causes a

person to reject his or her anima- or animus-inspired fantasies, for such fantasies contain a great deal of important psychic ener-

For this reason it is often better to try to understand the meaning of our fantasies than to reject them out of hand because of their supposed devilishness, for there is nothing wrong with gy.

having fantasies as such. Fantasies simply come uninvited into our minds for reasons of their own; it is what we do with our fanmatter of morality. If our erotic thoughts have been directed to another person by the anima or animus, there may be many messages for us. When this happens, perhaps the first thing to examine is the quality of our primary relationship. For instance, many men have tasies that is a

a passive eros, that

is,

they are not active in establishing close

ties

women as mothers and providcompanions and lovers. Consequently they remain undeveloped on the side of feeling and relationship. When this happens, the anima may attempt to stir them up by creating all kinds of fantasies in their minds. It is as though the anima recognizes the inadequacy and sleepiness of the man in the area of personal relationships and love, and decides to stir up the pot. Or, it may be that a man or a woman is married to the wrong person, has been unwilling or unable to face this fact, but is led to examine his or her primary relationship more honestly by the intru-

with women, they tend to look on ers

and not

as

sion into consciousness of anima- or animus-inspired fantasies

about other people.

Chapter Four

For

instance, a

83

man came to therapy many years. He

impotent with his wife for

because he had been also

was troubled

be-

cause of his erotic fantasies for another woman. After he had talked for a few hours

it

became

clear to

him

that he simply did

was not a matter of loving or not loving her, he did not like her, and really did not want to be with her. It was the first time he had allowed himself to face this fact. Once he faced this honestly, he sought out the other woman and immediately his impotence vanished. It was as though his penis did not lie; it was telling him all along that he simply did not want the woman to whom he was married. Of course this man had to go through all kinds of hell in separating from his wife, and he had to carry a certain burden of guilt, for, as could be expected, his wife felt unwanted and rejected. There are no simple solutions to love problems in life, and every love relationship requires a price from us. The chances are, however, that the appearance of the anima or animus in a projected form is simply an effort on the part of these inner figures to gain our attention, in the manner already noted. An attempt must then be made to withdraw the projecnot like his wife.

tion, that

is,

It

to understand that the attraction or fascination

we

another person stems from the projected psychic content within us. In this way we can begin to relate to the numinous imfeel for

age of the anima or animus as an inner factor of our

own

psyche,

and thus begin to achieve that vital relationship with the unconscious which is such an aid in our process of individuation. Of course, as was noted in chapter one, projections can never be withdrawn completely, for they are out of our conscious control; nor can we ever become so conscious of the inner images of the anima and animus that projections do not occur. Withdrawing projections does not mean that they no longer occur, but that we understand them as images within ourselves when they do. A special instance of anima projection in masculine psychology comes from the problem of the "double anima." The anima often comes up in a man's psychology as a double figure. The first anima image may draw a man to wife, family, and home.

The second anima image draws ly

a

man

into a world of emotional-

toned experiences or images outside of the wife-children-home

pattern.

(We can

call

one image endogamous and the other exog-

The

84

amous.)

Many men

ceed to

settle

life,

down

Invisible Partners

initially fulfil the first

anima image and pro-

and

satisfactions of family

to the pleasures

only to find that their consciousness

second anima image, for the

effect of the

is

later stirred

anima

is

by the

always to

"stir

up" a man's consciousness to greater life. It is as though the second image comes in order to awaken a man to further inner development, or lead him into more life experiences. She serves to keep his eros from becoming too passive, his state of mind from being too satisfied, comfortable, and, eventually, stagnant. In short, she brings fire into a

man's

life,

and adds color

to his per-

sonality.

When no

such anima entanglements develop in a

rules about

how

to proceed.

man

Theology may try to lay down

general principles for the regulation of mankind's love

psychology cannot do vidual solutions.

this, for

there are

life,

but

matters of eros permit only indi-

Each man must

find his

own way through

the

labyrinth of relationships, emotions, yearnings, and complications that the

emergence of the double anima image always

brings.

men who need concrete experiences with women in order to realize their own emotions and begin to understand what women mean to them. This may particularly be true for a man who has not had sufficient experience in matters of women, love, and relationship; who has, as it were, an "unThere may be some

lived life" in this area.

A man who is ward a

"caught" by the anima, and drawn by her towoman, will have to take into

relationship with another

account his primary relationship.

Many men,

out of loyalty and

love for their wives, quite correctly (for them) refuse to have a relationship with another

woman. Some men, however, do have

such a relationship, but keep

it

a secret, telling themselves that

they do not want to hurt their wives, and that what their partners do not know will not hurt them. Usually the truth is that they do not want to go through the emotional difficulties of telling their

wives the dilemma they are in and what they are doing. Most men do not like unpleasant emotional scenes and, understandably enough, their wives are likely to be hurt, angry, and perhaps vindictive

if

they

know that their husbands are sharing their love "What my wife (or husband) doesn't know

with other women.

Chapter Four

85

won't hurt her (or him)" usually translates, "I don't have the courage to go through the emotional hassle of bringing things out into the open."

an extramarital relationship is frequent or long-lasting, the spouse is certain to be affected by it eventually via the unconscious, that is, there will be effects on the psyche of the marriage partner even if on a conscious level that person does not know that anything is going on. Occasionally it happens, for instance, that a person comes to analysis because of a marriage relationship that is disturbed, yet he or she is unable to pinpoint the problem. When discussion with the spouse is attempted, nothing comes from it. Later it usually comes out that one of them has been involved in a relationship with someone else for some time. If

Then

it is

clear

different times,

and why

why why

the marriage partner acted so differently at so often there was a kind of secretiveness,

their discussions

seemed

to bear

little fruit.

There are

even cases in which a person dreamt that his or her partner was involved with someone else. Naturally the dreamer was disturbed

by

this,

but did not

know what

to

do with the dream because the

were not known. in the long run the extramarital

facts

So is

affair that is

kept secret

usually unfair to the other person in the marriage, and,

comes crecy.

it is found that damage The one who has been unaware of

when

it

has been caused by the se-

to light,

the partner's involve-

ment feels hurt and slighted, and, of course, the trust between the two people has been injured and may be difficult to rebuild. Also, a person who loves secretly tends to damage himself or herself. For one thing, it takes energy to keep a secret. Secrets are like corks that can be held under water only by applying constant pressure.

For

this reason

some psychic energy when we man also damages his own soul when

we

lose

keep a secret life hidden. A he damages the woman in his life because he alienates the anima. We cannot try to find happiness and fulfillment at someone else's expense without damaging our own souls in the process. In more metaphysical language, an attempt to find happiness at the expense of others develops a bad "karma" within

us, that

is,

it

causes retribution from within.

And what tions,

of the anima

who

is

behind

all

of these complica-

whose projected image onto the other woman has entan-

The

86

man

Invisible Partners

and stirred up his seems as though she does not care about the difficulties she is creating. Like Aphrodite, her concern is that men and women love and make love, and she is not concerned with human happiness. So there is this difficulty for a man: Human relationships, which call for an ethical and moral attitude, and for their continued success require qualities of integrity and fair play, are greatly troubled by an anima who doesn't care about these matters as long as she succeeds in stirring up more life. Yet it is not true that Aphrodite has no morality, for her moral code extends to all matters of relationship. In the long run, if a man is faithless in matters of love and relationship, the goddess within turns on him with a vengeance and demands retribution in the form of what has been called "feminine gled a

in fantasies, aroused his yearnings,

unfulfilled emotional life? It often

justice."

As Marie-Louise von Franz

has pointed out, 3 there

is

nine justice as well as masculine justice. Masculine justice personal and objective.

It is

femiis

im-

enshrined in our legal code and penal

system, and calls for an impartial and uniform meting out of justice as society requires

for various offenses, without regard to

it,

on the other hand, is and suited to the particular

individual considerations. Feminine justice,

the justice of nature.

It is

personal,

circumstances.

An

example of feminine justice

is

the story of a

woman who

advertised a new-model Porsche for sale at the ridiculously low price of $75. 00. 4

A man read the ad and contacted the woman.

have only a check," he

is

"I

reported to have told her. "That will be

woman

said. Amazed and delighted at his good fortune, the man gave her the check and drove off in the Porsche, but his conscience troubled him and he returned to her and said, "Lady, do you know what this car is worth?" "Oh yes," she answered. "Well then why are you selling it to me for only $75.00?" "Well," she replied, "It is like this. My husband left yesterday for Europe with his mistress and said to me, 'Sell the

perfectly all right," the

read

3

Von

4

This story was reported to

it

Franz, Feminine in Fairy Tales, pp. 33-34. me by people who heard

in the

lustrates

newspaper. The quotations

what feminine justice means.

may

it

over the radio and

not be exact. Factual or not,

it il-

Chapter Four Porsche for justice.

me and

send

me

87

the check.' "

The essence of it? Her husband

Now

that

is

feminine

got just what he deserved.

Feminine justice prevails in matters of human relationship, and also in the matter of our relationship with the unconscious and with nature. If we alienate the unconscious, or damage or ignore the laws and demands of Mother Nature, we get what we deserve. That is, there is a punishment meted out that exactly fits the individual circumstances. Thus if we abuse our bodies, we pay the appropriate price; when we contaminate the air and earth and sea, nature metes out a punishment to us, as we are just beginning to realize.

When we

despise the unconscious, justice will

be demanded from within us by

have offended, and

if

we

all

those inner powers

are false in our relationships,

whom we

we have

to

pay a price of some kind. I have discussed the problem of a man's double anima image, but a woman also has a double animus image, as Robert Johnson has shown in his study of the Hindu story 'The Transposed Heads." 5 When the animus comes up as a double image, one man may carry part of her animus for a woman, and another man may carry another part. Because these animus images are projected, the woman finds herself torn between the two men, for she experiences a different part of herself coming into being as she comes into relationship with each man. Naturally she has great difficulty in making a choice between the two men, for until she is able to take back the parts of her psyche that have been projected she is compulsively related to both of them, and finds it as difficult to give up one of them as she would find it difficult to give up her right or left arm. Her difficulty may be resolved, however, as she withdraws the projections through becoming conscious of them, and also as the personal relationship, as differentiated from the relationship that is engendered through projection, begins to develop more intensely with one man than with the other. It is

own

quite natural for a

young woman

to first experience her

personality through relationships with different men.

One

From a lecture by this title given by Robert Johnson in 1979 for the Friends of Jung. Available from the Friends of Jung Tape Library, P.O. Box 5

33114, San Diego, Calif. 92103.

The

88

Invisible Partners

young woman was sent to me by her parents for counseling because she went so quickly from one unlikely love affair to another. And it was true that she had a bewildering number of different men in her life: students, sailors, older men, young men, white men, black men there seemed to be no rhyme or reason to it. It was as though a different facet of her personality emerged

—

make monogamous life.

with each relationship. Eventually, however, she did

a

men, and lived a It young woman to go through this phase of her development. In some cases, when a woman marries quite

choice, married one of the

was important

for this

young, the need for such experiences may not have been met. If romantic fantasies have not been properly lived out in youth, and if

there are elements of emotional immaturity,

and unlived

life

may emerge into consciousness later and disturb the marriage. Many people feel that monogamy is more natural to women than it is to men. This may be, but it may also be that women, in general, are more personally related than men. That is, a woman who has decided on who "her man" is, is less likely to be diverted to other relationships by her fantasies than is a man whose capacity for personal relationship is not as well developed. Of course this is a generalization and sometimes it may be the man who has more capacity for personal relationship than the woman and who is,

accordingly,

more

resistant to seductive fantasies about other

people.

However, where a woman's energy is drawn toward personand especially toward developing a family, her

al relationships,

monogamous

emotionally accepted a other

may prevail. Once such a woman has man as her partner, she tends to exclude

tendencies

men from

her emotional

life,

just as the

ovum, once

it

has

acepted one sperm, shuts the other sperms out. In our present time the monogamous tendency among women does not appear to be as great as

it

was previously

—

at least

many women

report

today that they can have more than one man in their lives at the same time. Men have often been said to be more polygamous by nature, and, in our culture, may have to sacrifice some of this tendency in order to make a monogamous marriage work, but a generalization and there are certainly many men whose emotional lives center around one, and only one, woman. Whether it be a man or a woman, the most important thing this too is

Chapter Four

remember when the anima or animus

to

thoughts

is

is

up our erotic them is the drive of consciousness. The union of the perstirs

that the underlying force behind

the unconscious to relate to sonality

represented in the imagery of the unconscious as a

The

great love affair.

opposites within us are so far apart that

only the great unifying

power of eros can bring them

This can be said to be the chological fact, in to

89

become whole

all it is

common

together.

denominator, the basic psy-

love affairs, and for the person

who

wishes

the great underlying factor that can never

be disregarded. It is

clear

from what has been said that sexual

fantasies

and

yearnings are closely connected with inner psychological processes.

A word about the symbolic meaning of such fantasies is in or-

der at this point.

As sexually

a rule of thumb, is

it

can be said that what we yearn for we need in order to

a symbolic representation of what

become whole. This means that sexual complement ego consciousness in a way

fantasies symbolically

that points us toward

wholeness. Understanding the symbolic meaning of our sexual

become

compulsive regarding them, that is, instead of being driven and possessed by them, our range of consciousness can be expanded by them. The most frequent example of how a sexual yearning repre-

fantasies enables us to

what

less

needed to bring us to wholeness is the sexual desire of a man for a woman, and of a woman for a man. Images of a woman appear in a man's sexual fantasies because she represents his missing half, the other side of his personality to which he sents

is

needs to relate an.

Of course

if

he

to be complete,

and

vice versa with a

wom-

this is not to say that this is all that sexual yearn-

ings mean. There sion, for the

is

is

always the desire for physical release of ten-

meeting of body with body, and for the closeness and

intimacy with another person that sexuality achieves and expresses. But it is to say that in addition to these aspects of sexuality there is also

a spiritual or psychological meaning.

Sexual fantasies are usually complex.

woman

We

do not simply

or for a man, but have fantasies about the object of our desire in a particular way. There may be all kinds of romantic stories that accompany our desires, or there may be

yearn for a

90

The

Invisible Partners

fantasies of seduction or rape.

are innumerable,

and

it is

The

possibilities of sexual fantasies

quite natural for people to have highly

becomes them "perversions," but it is too bad if this leads us to dismiss them out of hand: instead we need to understand why we have this particular sexual fantasy, that is, what colorful sexual fantasies. If the content of these fantasies

too unusual,

we

call

the fantasy symbolically expresses.

Edward

Whitmont, in his book The Symbolic Quest, 6 gives us an example of how one man's unusual sexual fantasy represented symbolically exactly what changes he needed to undergo in order to become more whole. Whitmont's client came to him because he was incapable of having sexual intercourse with a woman until he had first kissed her feet. Naturally, this sexual fantasy was disturbing to him and he saw himself as perverted in some way. Analysis revealed that this man was unusually identified with his intellect and regarded himself as superior to women; accordingly he devalued the feminine side of himself and of life and cultivated an arrogant masculinity. In the act of kissing a woman's foot he had, symbolically, to lower his head. His sexual fantasies and desires thus forced the man to do symbolically what he had to accomplish psychologically in order to become a more whole person: sacrifice the domination of his intellect, give up his masculine arrogance, and, as it were, worship what he had hitherto devalued. As long as he did not understand the meaning of his sexual fantasies, Whitmont's client was simply seized by them compulsively and driven to act them out. As he began to understand what his fantasies meant, and why he had them, he was led to a change of consciousness, and became both more free in his love making and more whole as a person. One could say that his sexual fantasy came to cure him of a maladaptation of consciousness. The sexual fantasy was not an illness: he was one-sided and out of balance in his development and the sexual fantasy was produced by the unconscious to correct this. Adolf Guggenbuhl-Craig gives us another example." A student whom he once had as a client had gotten into trouble with

1

Edward

C.

C.

Whitmont. The Symbolic Quest, (Princeton.

University Press. 1978 edition), pp. 20-23. "

Guggenbuhl-Craig. Marriage,

p. 84.

N.J.: Princeton

Chapter Four

91

the police because of a sexual compulsion to steal female under-

One day, Guggenbuhl-Craig reports, his client came in to him triumphantly and read to him a passage from Goethe's poem wear.

Faust in which Faust meets the beautiful Helen: Faust, after a long search, finally meets this most beautiful feminine being in the world, only to have her disappear, leaving Faust standing there with her garment and veil in his hands.

concluded from

this story that

The young man

he was seized by a vision of the

beauty of the eternal feminine image, which was symbolized by the feminine garment that so occupied his sexual thoughts. object of his desire, in short,

woman

was not woman

as such but

symbolized to him: the eternal feminine with

all

The what

of her

majesty and numinosity. Like Faust, he had glimpsed somewhere a vision of this, but had been

with only the symbol of the gar-

left

ment in his hands. Another common sexual fantasy among men as they enter into middle age is the fantasy of meeting and relating sexually with a much younger woman. In many respects, of course, the meaning of such fantasies is obvious, since younger women may be supposed to be more physically attractive. But on a deeper level these desires express the difficulty a

the fact that he

man

is aging, his desire to

the progress of the years, and, at

its

encounters in accepting

hang on

deepest

to

life

level, his

the renewal of his consciousness and for immortal

life.

and retard hunger for

The

latter

any sexual relationship, of through a contact with the uncon-

desires cannot be fulfilled through

course, but can be fulfilled

anima provides, that is, through individuation. Such a fantasy thus expresses not so much a physical desire as a

scious that the

religious need.

Fantasies such as these are quite impersonal; they operate

within us independently of any personal or feeling relationship to

any particular individual. They are a kind of impersonal sexuality that might or might not be conjoined with personal love and feeling for a sexual partner. Men in particular seem prone to disconnect their sexual lives from their personal feelings, while are

more

likely to report that they

cannot do

not more intense than romantic and more personally oriented to a

ual feelings, while every bit as intense

a man's, are

women

this, that their sex-

more

particular person to

whom

they

if

feel close.

The

92

because there

It is

Invisible Partners

is

so

much

symbolic meaning in sexual

fantasies that Adolf Guggenbuhl-Craig has referred to them as "individuation fantasies." In his book he says, "Sexuality, with all its variations, can be understood as an individuation fantasy, a fantasy whose symbols are so alive and so effective that they even sexual life, above all as it shows itinfluence our physiology self in fantasy, is an intensive individuation process in symbols. This form of the process must be respected and recognized." He goes on to argue that sexual fantasies that seem to deviate from .

.

.

"The sexual fantasies of most men and women are wilder and more bizarre than actual sexual life as it is lived. Unfortunately, analysts and psychologists often react to such fantasies condescendingly and pathologize them. A commentary on a particularly lively and unusual sexual fantasy of a patient might be the following: This young man or the

"norm" should not be

woman

—

—

not yet capable of relationship.

is

the victim of his attitude

pathologized.

non-human

He

sexual instinct.'

"8

is still

completely

This disparaging

the part of therapists toward sexual fantasies simply

on

guilt, inhibitions, and isolation, and prevents a patient from more openly investigating important psychological processes. This negative attitude came partly, at least, from Freud, who regarded all sexual desires except the most "normal" as symp-

engenders

toms of maldevelopment. Currently therapists are changing

much more

to a

accepting attitude that regards a variety of sexual

fantasies as natural

and

tries to

reduce guilt about them, though

the living out of sexual fantasies

is

another matter, of course.

However, there is very little understanding among therapists today of the symbolic meaning of such fantasies, even among those

who

are

more

progressively oriented than the old-style psychia-

trists.

What

do with the sexual energy aroused by our fantasies is, of course, a difficult question. When, where, and how sexual life should be lived out has always been a moral and social problem of great complexity, and different cultures have had different attitudes

to

toward

it.

Christian culture has generally been exceedingly restrictive

of the sexual impulse, as will be seen in 8

Ibid., pp.

82-83.

more

detail later.

Because

Chapter Four

93

of this a peculiar situation has existed in our culture:

impart to children the feeling that sexuality

same time we

give

is

We

tend to

bad, yet at the

young people every opportunity

to experiment Every psychotherapist hears stories from his or her clients of childhood sexual experiences that were shrouded in secrecy and guilt, which the child kept hidden from parents out of fear of punishment or a vague but powerful feeling of having done something wrong. The result is that a lot of guilt tends to become associated with sex, which damages the instinc-

with this fascinating

instinct.

life. In contrast, American Indian culture reversed this. In Indian culture, sexuality was regarded as something natural and

tual

same time young people were carefully watched to make sure that it was not expressed until the proper time had come for it. No doubt much psychological damage was avoided in this way. At the present time in our culture the picinnocent, but at the

ture

is

changing. Christian restrictiveness

is

giving

way

to license;

where before there were too many restrictions, now there are sometimes none at all. It might be said that constipation has given way to diarrhea, but the one has never been known to be the cure for the other.

Too much

direct expression of sexual

life,

without regard for the elements of romance, personal relation-

and psychological understanding of

ship,

its

meaning, damages

life just as too many restrictions damage the instincThe two, of course, affect each other. A person whose instinctual life is damaged suffers sooner or later from atrophy of the spiritual life as well, and damage to the spiritual life sooner or

the spiritual tual

life.

jaded instinctual life that has lost its dynamism. sometimes men become impotent when they are continulive out an unbridled sexuality after the time has come for

later results in a

In

fact,

ing to

them

to sacrifice

some of their sexual

ferent level of consciousness.

not separate

realities;

desires for the sake of a dif-

For the sensual and the

spiritual are

both embody the same mystery. The

life

of

may well be enhanced by the physical expression of sexmany people need to find and express the fire of the spirit

the spirit uality;

through sensuality and other physical expressions of their bodies, On the other hand, sexual tension and the quali-

such as dancing. ty of sexual

life

can be increased by allying the physical instinct

with a developing spiritual consciousness. If sexual fantasies

become compulsive, or

if living

them out

The

94

Invisible Partners

concretely would be destructive to our important personal relationships,

we may need

to

make

special efforts to bring the ener-

gy of such fantasies to a higher level of consciousness in a special way. This is where we need psychology to help us understand their symbolic meaning. Active imagination, in the manner described in the appendix to this book,

may

also be particularly

helpful in this task.

A

special instance of sexual fantasy

life lies

in the area of

male homosexuality, 9 and because homosexuality is so frequent among men these fantasies are worth some special comments. To begin with, to refer to homosexuality as though it is a uniform phenomenon is misleading, for there are many expressions of male sexuality that we call homosexual that actually differ markedly. In general, we refer to homosexuality whenever a man has a sexual erotic desire for another male, or for the male organ. Yet such desires may take quite varied forms. Some men are exclusively homosexual and have intimate relationships only with other men. But others marry, have children, and develop a satisfactory heterosexual life, yet are overwhelmed from time to time with what appears to be a desire for a homosexual experience.

In the latter case,

man has fallen

of a young Adonis. older

we

often find that a middle-aged or older

in love with a

man seems

to

younger

man who

has the attributes

The young man who receives the love of the embody in himself both masculine and femi-

nine virtues. Typically he has a strong,

virile

body, yet he also

has certain feminine attributes and graces that give him a beauti10 ful, youthful quality; he appears as a young David, an Antinous, or a young god, rather than as a one-sidedly masculine person. Such a youth receives the projection of the Self, the image of

wholeness in the psyche of the older man. Most men, as we have seen, project their missing half, the feminine element, onto a

9

I

1

have

am

my remarks to male homosexuality, for I do not feel knowledge to venture into the subject of homosexuality among

going to confine

sufficient

women. 10 The young lover of the Roman Emperor Hadrian. See Marguerite Yourcenar, Memoirs of Hadrian (New York: Farrar, Strauss and Co., 1963).

Chapter Four

woman. The man then

woman

inine

represents the masculine side, and the

the feminine side, of a masculine-feminine totality. In the

instance in the

we

are

now

considering, however, totality

is

represented

young man, who seems to include both masculine and femin himself. The actual young man is himself not this com-

plete person; he

is

simply the carrier of the projection of the an-

drogynous soul of the older man. In get to

95

know each

other as

human

when the two people may be keenly dis-

fact,

beings, they

appointed in each other.

So there are some men whose other side, which represents wholeness for them, is not represented by a woman, but by this figure of the androgynous, divine youth. Marie-Louise von Franz writes, "There is the same idea in Persian teaching which says that after death the noble man meets either a youth who looks exand if he asks the figactly like himself, ... or a girl of fifteen, .

ure

who

it is,

then

it

will say,

T am

thy

.

.

own

self.'

"n

A good example of this kind of homoerotic desire is found in Thomas Mann's

novelette Death in Venice.

the aging Aschenbach,

who

Author Mann says of

has fallen in love with the youthful

Tadzio, "His eyes took in the proud bearing of that figure there

with an outburst of rapture he told himwhat he saw was beauty's very essence; form as divine thought, the single and pure perfection which resides in the mind, of which an image and likeness, rare and holy, was here 12 raised up for adoration." Such a projection of the Self onto a younger man is possible because the Self image is typically represented for a man as either an older man or a younger man, as Marie-Louise von Franz has pointed out in her book The Feminine in Fairy Tales} This helps us understand the strong bond that sometimes springs up between a young man and an older man. For the young man, the Self is carried by the older man, who represents the positive faat the blue water's edge;

self that

1

" Marie- Louise

von Franz, Puer Aeternus (Zurich: Spring Publications,

1970), p. IX-17. 12

Thomas Mann, Death

13

Pp. 151-152. For a

in

Venice

(New York: Random House,

1936), p.

44.

woman, an

the projection of the Self image.

older or a younger

woman

might carry

The

96

power, and the authority of the

ther,

Self

Invisible Partners

is

carried by the youth,

who

For the older man, the and the Because these projections

Self.

represents son, eros,

eternally youthful aspect of the Self.

are so numinous, and the longing for a relationship with the Self

bond between them readily becomes tinged with and becomes what we think of as a homosexual relationship. Indeed, the relationship does tend to become sexual, but at its core there is the longing for wholeness, and energy for the relationship is supplied by the deep need each of the men has to integrate into himself what the other represents. As we have seen, we tend to long sexually for whatever it is is

so great, the

sexuality,

we

that

lack in our conscious development. In the case of the old-

er man who longs for the young man, we usually find a person who has been too connected to the senex archetype, that is, too rigid,

too aging, too caught up in the drive for power, or too in-

So the longing

tellectual.

is

for eros, for the puer or eternal youth,

in short, for the spirit, in the

form of a symbolic figure that com-

pensates the man's conscious one-sidedness and offers to bring the ecstasy of totality.

In other types of homosexuality the object of sexual desire

may

not be another male as such, but a yearning for contact with

the male organ. Again, this

may

occur in a

man who

is

which

married,

or has an otherwise normal heterosexual

life,

moerotic yearning intrudes from time

to time. Often such a

into

this ho-

yearning represents symbolically a deep need for connection with the

represented by the phallus, symbol of the creative mas-

Self,

culine spirit.

sciousness

Such a longing often intrudes

when he

feels particularly

into a

man's con-

exhausted or fragmented,

and needs the healing and synthesizing of his ego through a con-

may also come as a compensation for too much exposure to the woman, both the woman within and the woman without, for man finds woman dangerous, and in order to tact with the Self. It

maintain himself in relationship to her he must from time to time

renew and consolidate It is

quite

his masculinity.

common

to find

among

all

of these

men we have

described a love problem of long standing. Often there was too little love between the mother and the boy, or the wrong kind of possessive or overwhelming love.

may be

Of equal

importance, however,

the missing love of the father. There

is

a time in a boy's

Chapter Four

when he needs and

life

97

craves love from his father, including

physical expressions of the father's affection for him. In the type

of homoerotic yearning

we have

described there usually has been

a lack of such expressions of love between the boy and his father. Either the father was missing, or was not capable of that kind of love, or

hated and rejected the boy, or was such a weak

his love

was not worth having. Such

man

that

unfulfilled needs in the area

of masculine affection create an uncertainty in the developing ego of the boy about his

own

masculinity, for masculine identification

boy develops partly as a result of the boy's identification with his father and the resulting feeling that he is included in the world of men as a man among men. This need will be particularly great if the mother's animus is directed toward the boy in a way that cuts him off from his bud14 ding, primitive masculine side. As von Franz has pointed out, in an effort to socialize the boy a woman may allow her animus to cut him off from too much of his budding masculinity, the kind in a

of boyish masculinity that tracks dirt into the house, uses dirty

words, and struts about like a bantam rooster. Such outbreaks of boyish earthiness are, naturally, difficult for the mother to accept

on a

social level, yet they contain the seeds of a later positive

masculine development. Too often the mother's animus squashes these signs of masculinity in the boy too

a sensitive youngster, the boy himself as a result.

An

may

much, and,

especially in

lose touch with that side of

overly strict religious training

force this process, stressing too

much

may

rein-

the values of kindness, for-

and so forth, when the boy has not yet succeeded in first becoming confident of his budding masculine prowess. When this happens, the young man's unfulfilled needs for primitive masculine development, and for the masculine affection he missed from his father, may be reflected in sexualized yearnings for closeness with other males. Women, on the other hand, are shunned, for a man has a fear of the sexual power of woman, her emotionality and her animus, which can be assuaged only giveness,

Marie-Louise von Franz, A Psychological Interpretation of The Golden Ass ofApuleius (Zurich: Spring Publications, 1970), pp. XIII-lOfT. and II-31T. 14

Cf.

Puer Aeternus.

The

98

when

man

a

masculine

is

Invisible Partners

sufficiently confident of his chthonic, instinctual

side.

is why at puberty young men in primitive cultures are by the men into an exclusively masculine world via trials of strength and secret rites. Women are prohibited from witnessing these male rites, not only, perhaps, because they might prove a softening influence, but also because they might laugh, and this would wound the masculine self-esteem that the boy so greatly needs to build up. In addition to the trials of strength and the endurance of pain that these rites contain, which serve to strengthen the boy's ego, there is the transmission to the young man of the spiritual lore of the tribe that is passed down from the older men to the younger. Thus the boy comes into the possession of

This

initiated

secrets

known

only to the

men

(an analogous lore

is

passed

down

from the older women to the young women in female initiation). Only after the boy is properly initiated into this all-masculine world is he ready for contact with the fascinating but dangerous world of women. Our present culture makes no provision for this kind of initiation ritual, and a good deal of what we call homosexuality is an attempt to fill the psychological need that is left by this omission.

We have been

considering types of homosexuality that seem

to represent an incompleted masculine development, or the pro-

jection of the soul image in an androgynous form. However,

there are other types of homosexuality where the anima seems to

play the dominant role because she seems to be in

more or

less

complete control of the man's ego. In these cases, the qualities of the anima have, as it were, homogenized themselves with the masculine ego qualities and produced a kind of feminized male ego. This leads to

what we might

man identifies his of man has refused or

While usually a to, this

type

call classic

homosexuality.

ego with masculinity, or tries has been unable to make such

a masculine identification, and his ego structure has a certain hermaphroditic structure as a result. In his ego psychology, consequently, the

anima plays a dominant

role.

Under such condi-

tions heterosexual relationships are out of the question, for the

opposites cannot relate and unite until they have

norm

for such a

been sepa-

Homosexual man.

rated and distinguished from each other. ships, therefore, are the

first

relation-

Chapter Four

These men may have many positive

99 qualities.

They can be

quite sensitive, are often easy to talk with, frequently have a gentle,

healing quality, and are given to artistic inclinations. In prim-

communities,

itive

own day

many shamans were homosexual, and in our who have

there are certain individuals with healing gifts

such a homosexual disposition.

On

the negative side, they can be

and oversensitive, which often makes long-lasting, intimate relationships difficult. The American Indians had an explanation for this kind of homosexuality that is as good as any I know, even though it is couched in mythological rather than scientific terms. The Indipeevish, fickle in relationships,

moon appeared to a boy ofone hand, and a woman's pack

ans believed that during puberty the fering

him

a

bow and arrow

in

boy hesitated when reaching for the bow and arrow, then the moon handed him the pack strap. These young men became "berdaches," or homosexuals. They wore a special kind of dress and performed special functions in the tribe. For instance, they often served as matchmakers, and while they did not go to war, as did the other young men, they might accompany the war party to care for the wounded. Berdaches were perfectly accepted in the Indian community. They were not ridiculed or despised, but simply regarded as a special sort of man. 15 In psychological language, this is a way of saying that if a young strap in the other. If the

man

does not reach out to identify himself with his masculinity,

symbolized by the anima.

bow and

arrow, he

falls into

the hands of the

There are few more convincing demonstrations of the reality man than these types of masculine homosexual-

of the anima in a

which the presence of the feminine power is so conspicuous. In mannerisms, dress, the language system that arises in the subculture such men create for themselves, even in assumed feminine names, these men show forth the reality of the anima to an ity in

be that a certain number of males in each generation are chosen in some way by the uncon-

otherwise unbelieving world. scious to live ed, as

It

may

such a hermaphroditic way, that they are fat16 said, to refuse to identify with "the role of a

life in

Jung once

" Cf. Indians (Alexandria, Va.: Time-Life Books, 1973), 16

Jung,

CW

9, 1, p. 71.

p.

129.

The

100

Invisible Partners

one-sided sexual being," as though to remind us that no one clusively

is

ex-

male or female, but that each of us has an androgynous

nature.

In addition to

men

with a homoerotic tendency or homosex-

men who also lie very These men have succeeded in

ual nature there are other, heterosexual close to the feminine archetype.

making a male ego

identification,

and

their sexual feelings

and

women, but it is as though the feminine archetype is unusually numinous to them and looms large in their psychology. They too are often sensitive men with love needs are directed toward

healing gifts or artistic inclinations, although their proximity to

may result in unusual sexual fantasies. These fantasies, Guggenbuhl-Craig has pointed out, 17 should not be regarded as perverse, for they may be evidence of a potentially sensitive and differentiated personality. With these men, the Dr. Zhivagos of our society, there seems to be a need to be initiated into the meaning and mystery of the feminine on all of its levels. Such men are called on to understand women, to understand the feminine in themselves, to recognize and give importance to feminine values in life, and to have an immediate and personal experience the anima as

with the unconscious. In this way they become

initiates, as

it

were, of the Great Goddess. Such an initiation into the meaning

of the feminine does not feminize these men, for in understanding the feminine they also differentiate the feminine from themselves.

Their ego remains masculine, but

is

transformed by this initiation

These cases suganima is greater in some men than in others. Because of her numinosity, the anima exerts a profound influence on the psychology of certain men, fating them to lead a special kind of life that requires them to ac-

into a

more

differentiated state of consciousness.

gest that the psychological influence of the

quire unusual self-knowledge. It is this

numinous element

that the

anima introduces that

can enter into sexuality and be the link between sexuality and religion. If we used the language of ancient times we would say that a god or goddess has entered into the situation whenever sexual attraction becomes numinous. In psychological language we

would say that an archetype 17

Marriage,

p. 78.

is

exerting

its

fascination

on

us.

Chapter Four

Thus

in sexuality

we not only

101

seek the satisfaction of physical

needs, the release of physical tensions, and, sometimes, psycho-

we can also be expressing our an enlargement of narrow ego consciousness through contact with the divine. If, however, our consciousness is at a low level, the religious urges contained in logical intimacy with other people;

longing for ecstasy, that

is,

for

sexuality are not fulfilled.

At

its

worst,

we then have only

expres-

and egocentric desires and not the fulfillment of our need for ecstasy. For the religious side of sexuality to be fulfilled, we must relate to the archetypal factors in sexual desires in the correct way. We need to "worship" them by giving them correct and conscious attention. The connection between sexuality and religion leads Adolf Guggenbuhl-Craig to make the interesting observation that while Freud tried to show that religion was a sublimation of sexuality, sions of greed

it is

closer to the truth to say that sexuality can be, at

the expression of mankind's religious urge, that stasy

and wholeness.

Freud sought

He

in his

ask:

can the

heart,

the urge to ec-

writes,

own

way

to understand all

(such as

art, religion, etc.)

very impressive

of the so-called higher activities of as sublimated sexuality.

is,

its

man

We can attempt to turn this around and to

totality of sexuality

be comprehended from the view-

point of individuation, of the religious impulse?

Are the deeply

sexually-colored love songs of medieval nuns really, as Freud

would have it, expressions of frustrated eroticism? Do the many modern songs and the folk-songs that sing sentimentally about love and leave-taking have to do only with the unlived sexuality of adolescence?

Or

are they symbolic forms of expression for individ-

uation processes and for the religious quest? 18

So

far in discussing sexuality

and sexual

fantasies very

little

have discussed being in love, but not love in the sense of personal caring between one person and another. Later I will make a few comments about love, but the fact of the matter is that love is a great mystery that is not understood. We can describe psychologically what happens when we are "in love," and to a certain extent can understand this powerful phehas been said about love.

18

Ibid., p. 80.

I

The

102

Invisible Partners

nomenon, and we can discuss sexuality in its objective, impersonal workings. But why one human being should truly love another,

why we

where we are willing and able to sacrifice I have not discussed love

to the point

person length

is

are capable of actually caring for another person

a sublime mystery. If

it is

not because

it is

unimportant, but because

portant that to psychologize is

to devalue

it,

not value

it.

it

or

for that at

it is

more

so im-

make pronouncements about

When

all is

said

and done,

it

after all

the discussion of being in love, sexuality, fantasies, projections,

and so

we wind up confronted by something we know nothing about: human love.

forth,

practically

Another reason that the nature of love is so hard to discuss book such as this is because of its highly individual quality. Inevitably in this discussion I have had to make generalizations,

in a

but the expression of eros

in the last analysis,

is,

always an indi-

As von Franz once pointed out, no love problem can be solved by following a general principle. "If there is a solution," she wrote, "it can only be unique, from individual to individual, from one woman to one man. Eros is in its essence only

vidual matter.

meaningful

if it

reason, while

is

I feel

19 For this completely, uniquely individual."

able to

make

certain general statements about

projection, transference, sexuality, to

make

and so

forth,

general statements about the mystery of

the final analysis, poets and novelists will have

it is

impossible

human

more

love. In

to say about

love than psychologists, for they express the inexpressible, and

describe individual persons and their love problems, with their individual solutions and failures, and this

is

true to

life

and

to

eros.

have been discussing the role of the feminine archetype in the psychology of men. It is now necessary to say some things about how the feminine archetype appears in the psychology of I

women

in different

ways and

creates, as a result, different types

of personalities.

In a paper entitled "Structural

Von

Franz, The Golden Ass,

p.

XIII-1

Forms of

the Feminine

Chapter Four

103

Psyche," 20 the late Zurich analyst Toni Wolff described four types of women: the mother, the hetaira, the amazon, and the

medium

Wolff argues that although every woman embodies each of these four types in herself, one or more of them tends to be of primary importance, and this primary identifica(medial). Toni

woman's personality a particular form. The woman who is most identified with mother

tion gives to a

finds her

primary identity and fulfillment in nourishing life. Usually she will be fulfilled in bearing and raising children, and it is to this that such a woman will primarily be drawn; when she marries, the children will tend to be

band. She

is

more important

to her than her hus-

of great value to people because she nourishes

although there

life,

always the negative possibility that in her need to be mother she may unconsciously retard the development of her children, holding them to her for too long a time, or she may is

marry a man who

is

psychologically crippled so that he too

is

a

child for her.

The word

hetaira refers to a class of

women

in ancient

Greece who were especially educated so they could be psychological companions to men. The hetaira woman finds her primary identity and fulfillment in achieving relationships with men. These relationships may or may not include sexual love, but they certainly will include psychological relating stinct

is

such a

to relate to a

woman

man and draw

on

all levels.

out his eros.

very valuable, for she

is

Men

Her

in-

often find

able to elicit a develop-

ment

in the area of personal interaction and love that otherwise might be lost to them. There is always the danger, however, that such a woman may be unable to achieve or remain in a lasting relationship, but may move continually from one man to another, always making a relationship but not being capable of seeing it through the vicissitudes of life. Needless to say, such a woman is not likely to be as popular with other women as she is with men. The amazon type is the woman who finds her primary identity and fulfillment in the outer world. In our society this will usually be in some type of career. She does what men do, and of-

20

Edward Whitmont

Quest, pp. 178-181.

also has a

good summary

in his

book The Symbolic

The

104 ten

Invisible Partners

capable, resourceful,

is

and

skillful at

her work, making

sig-

nificant social contributions as a doctor, scientist, administrator, it might happen to be. Many greatly adhave no doubt been of this type, all the way from Queen Elizabeth I to Susan B. Anthony. The dangerous possibility for such women is, however, that they may become too mascu-

secretary, or whatever

mired

women

line in their orientation

and

lose contact with their feminine na-

ture.

The medium or medial type is hardest to describe because we have practically no provision in our society for such a person. These

women

find their primary identity

and

fulfillment in

mak-

ing a relationship with the collective unconscious and being, as

it

were, a bridge between the world of the unconscious and the hu-

man community. These women may

be visionaries, mystics, psy-

mediums. Generally we look at them we direct toward the unconscious. In other cultures than our own, such women might have been priestesses or prophetesses, shamanesses or sybils. In our culture there is little place for them, and their often considerable psychochics, healers, poets, or

with

all

the suspicion that

logical gifts being unfulfilled, they

more

may

experience difficulty ad-

life and feel overwhelmed by the proximity of the unconscious. The medial

justing to other

type of

woman may

socially

approved vocations in

have a great contribution to make to the

healing of mankind. Joan of Arc, for instance, no doubt had a

Witch of Endor who healed King Saul of his lack of courage and sent him 21 out to die like a man and a hero. On the negative side, unless great deal of the medial type in her, as did the so-called

her

gifts are

balanced by a certain

logical insight, she

may

fall

scientific attitude or

psycho-

prey to inflation or to wildly specula-

tive ideas.

be noted that the mother and hetaira are personally oriented, and people and relationships are of primary importance to them. The amazon and medial types are more impersonally It will

oriented, the one being impersonally related to the outer world,

the other to the world of the psyche. It is also to

herself,

21

1

and Sam.

later

28.

be noted that a be drawn to

woman may

fulfil

fulfil

another. So a

one part of

woman may

Chapter Four

105

complete herself as mother, then find the hetaira or the amazon rising up in herself demanding fulfillment as well. Tension between one or more of these structural forms, which obviously

may

conflict with

logical

and

may

each other,

greatly complicate her psycho-

social situation.

It is also to be noted that men who think of women only as mothers and wives will have difficulty understanding and accept-

ing a

woman who

finds that she

or medial type as well.

must

fulfil

herself as an

amazon

A married man who attempts to suppress

these other aspects of his wife can expect only trouble and unhappiness as a result. If he

should

turn up, he

it

love of a

is

may

able to accept his wife's other side,

find himself ultimately blessed by the

more complete and

fulfilled

In these different types of different weight, or at least

woman.

women

appears to be the strongest force in the ed, runs the side.

may have a different quality. He amazon, who, as we notthe animus

come up with a

danger of becoming too identified with her masculine to play the least role in the hetaira, though he can

He seems

be seen there too in the ruthlessness with which such a may pursue her love goals in relationship to a man.

The

hetaira

woman

woman

introduces an intriguing question: Does

the quality of anima belong only to the

man? Or

are the terms

anima and animus

descriptive of feminine and masculine elements within both men and women? As we have seen, the way in which Jung used these terms reserved anima as the name for the feminine qualities in a man, and animus as the name for the masculine qualities in a woman. He once wrote, "The anima, being of feminine gender, is exclusively a figure that compensates the masculine consciousness." 22 By the kind of parallel thinking that Jungians love, the same would be said of the animus: that he is exclusively a figure of feminine psychology, the personification of her masculine element that com-

pensates her feminine consciousness.

feminine to begin with, and a

man

is

The

idea

is

that a

masculine, so

woman

it is

is

simply a

matter of designating the contrasexual aspect that rules the unconscious.

However, James Hillman challenges Jung,

CW1,

par. 328.

this thesis in the

Spring

The

106

Invisible Partners

articles referred to earlier.

Exploring the argument that the anima

cannot be limited to the male sex alone (and the corresponding argument could be used for the animus), Hillman notes that the

anima

is

an archetype and "an archetype as such cannot be

at-

He

ar-

tributed to or located within the psyche of either sex." 23

gues that the anima as archetype should be released from the notion of contrasexuality (that

is,

chology of women as well.

It

that

it is

the feminine opposite to

can be seen to apply to the psywould appear then that women, too,

masculine consciousness), for

it

need to discover anima, the elemental feminine soul within them-

and that the complaint of many women, that they feel inwardly empty, points to the area of soul as their need. It cannot be said that a woman has soul merely by virtue of her birth. She, too, must find the soul (anima) who is the wellspring of her inselves,

ward

life.

And just

as a

man may

develop his

spirit

and logos

to

the exclusion of his feminine side, and so lose his soul, so, too,

woman may develop the animus (the spirit) and exclude her soul in the process. Indeed, Hillman argues, many women today, in a

their pursuit of

academic studies and masculine-oriented goals, from exactly the same problem as men: loss of

suffer as a result

anima or This therapy.

soul. is

a particularly trying problem in the field of psycho-

Above

all,

the psychotherapist needs to have "soul" in

order to be able to help his or her patients. Yet the process of

which the prospective therapist must go, be that person a psychiatrist, psychologist, or some other type of counselor, is likely to produce a one-sided and collective person whose consciousness has been poured into a rationalistic straitjacket and who has, as a result, lost contact with anima or soul. The instance of the so-called anima woman tends to substantiate Hillman's point. The anima woman is a woman who has a particular knack for gathering in, and reflecting back, a man's anima projection. She is said to catch, mirror, and mimic the anima in men, and so to fascinate and beguile them. It has been argued that instead of having an authentic personality of her own, such a woman lives out the anima of the man for him, while she herself is like an empty vessel. Hillman argues, however, that training through

"Hillman, "Anima,"

p. 111.

Chapter Four

women

such

are not

empty

vessels at

woman who

here with a type of

lies

107

we are dealing very close to the elemental all,

but that

feminine quality called anima. She possesses and radiates anima as a quality of her own, and gathers in men's anima projections

anima. The apparent emptiness, he continues, "would be considered an authentic archetypal manifestation

because she herself

is

of the anima in one of her classical forms, maiden, nymph, Kore, which Jung so well describes (CW 9,1; para. 311) and where he also states that 'she often appears in in

such a

woman would

woman.'

" 24

What

is

lacking

not be personality, for her personality

defined by the anima quality, especially in

its

maiden

is

aspect, but

rather by her failure to differentiate her individuality.

Her danger remaining too closely identified with an archetype, and failing to achieve her individual relatedness to her marked anima nais

ture.

That Jung himself seemed to sense that anima was a quality belonging to

women

as well as to

men

is

expressed in a letter he

wrote in 1951 to Fr. Victor White about an unusual ent.

is

cli-

have seen Mrs.

X

and

assure you she

quite an eyeful and and I must admit she quite remarkable. If ever there was an anima it is she, and there no doubt about it. In such cases one had better cross oneself, because the anima, I

beyond!

is

woman

He comments,

We

particularly

had an

I

is

interesting conversation

when she

is

quintessential as in this case, casts a meta-

shadow which is long like a hotel-bill and contains no end of items that add up in a marvellous way. One cannot label her and put her into a drawer. She decidedly leaves you guessing. I hadn't expected anything like that. At least I understand now why she dreams of Derby winners: it just belongs to her! She is a synchronistic phenomenon all over, and one can keep up with her as physical

little I

as with one's

own

unconscious.

think you ought to be very grateful to

St.

Dominicus

that he

has founded an order of which you are a member. In such cases

one appreciates the existence of monasteries. It is just as well that she got all her psychology from books, as she would have busted

24

Ibid., d. 118.

The

Invisible Partners

every decent and competent analyst.

I

sincerely

hope that she

is

money

to

going on dreaming of winners, because such people need

keep them

We

afloa:

do not know who

this

remarkable

woman

who made

is

such an impression on Dr. Jung and Fr. White, but she evidently has an elusive, distinct feminine quality, a primitive soul, as it were, and in this case

it

is

not a matter of this being projected

onto her by a man; rather,

would seem

it

belongs to her as a

woman. This

to give credence to Hillman's thesis that "anima''

properly refers to an elemental feminine quality in

women

alike,

and "animus,' by the Jungian '

logic of opposites,

likewise to an elemental masculine quality. This at things

is

as flowing

men and

way

of looking

reflected in the Chinese conception of psychic energy

between two

nese envisaged

polarities.

Yang and Yin

As mentioned

earlier, the

Chi-

as ubiquitous, cosmic, psychic

The ancient Chinese document Chin Hua Tsung Chich," for example, spoke of the p'o soul and hun soul, feminine and masculine respectively, and said they were both in each individual. An interesting passage in Esther Harding's book Woman's Mysteries also points to the presence in women, as well as in men, of an elemental feminine quality best called anima. Harding first describes the anima in man as a "feminine nature-spirit, which poles of equal weight and value. "T'ai

I

reflects

the characteristics of the daemonic,

goddess, and gives to

Eros in

all its

man

nonhuman moon nonhuman

a direct experience of the

power, both glorious and terrible." She then con-

tinues:

With the woman the

situation

is

somewhat

different.

She usually

does not experience the feminine principle directly in

this dae-

monic form. For it is mediated to her through her own womanhood and her own developed feeling approach to life. But if she will stop long enough to look within, she also may become aware of impulses and thoughts which are not in accord with her conscious attitudes but are the direct outcome of the crude and un-

Jung, Lttttn

2

r

24. Italics

mine.

Chapter Four tamed feminine being within

woman

will not

her.

109

For the most

however, a

part,

look at these dark secrets of her

own

nature.

It is

too painful, too undermining of the conscious character which she has built up for herself; she prefers to think that she really is as she appears to be. And indeed it is her task to stand between the Eros

which

is

within her, and the world without, and through her own to the world to make human, as it were, the

womanly adaptation

daemoniac power of the nonhuman feminine This

"nonhuman feminine

an elemental feminine just as a

man

man

suggests

is

principle," according to Harding,

woman may

spirit a

discovers

it

principle. 26

in himself,

and

is

discover in herself,

it is

just this that Hill-

anima.

This also brings up the question of whether the anima is a unipersonality or a multipersonality. Jung's original thought was that the

anima had

a unified personality, but that the

resented himself as a

number of men and was

animus rep-

a multipersonality.

hard, however, to see what empirical basis there

It is

is

for this

man's dreams there may appear any number of different women, just as in the dreams of a woman there may appear any number of different men. It is prejudicial to say in the former case that this is not as it "should" be, and that the various women figures in a man's dream mean a breaking up of a unipersonality. For it could just as easily be said that the dream in which idea. In a

many women appear man's

that

nine archetype.

many feminine many different faces

represents the

soul, or, at least, the It is true,

many men sometimes

of course, that in the dreams of

appear.

A woman may

of a court of male figures, or a

ple,

elements in of the femi-

women

dream, for exam-

number of men

sitting

around

a table, or a group of soldiers. Jungian psychologists then feel

comfortable and say, "Ah! There

men

is

the animus as a

number of

men personify the different opinions of the animus!" However, a woman may just as readily dream of a single man who appears as robber, lover, guide, priest, or whatever it may be. If in the earlier examples it was the ani-

:

G.

P.

just as

'

he should

Esther Harding,

be! All these

Woman's

Putnam's Sons, 1971

Mysteries, Ancient

edition), pp. 35, 36.

and Modern, (New York:

The

110

Invisible Partners

mus as the "many opinions," then what is it in the other cases when the animus appears as a single person? Indeed, we cannot even say for sure whether the "negative anima" and "positive anima," the "negative animus" and "positive animus" (to use these stilted terms), are separate realities or two sides of one coin. It is usually said that they represent the dark and light sides of one reality, the destructive and helpful sides of a single archetype. Yet, experientially, they appear as

from each other, and certainly in practical life and analysis we do well to differentiate between them and speak of them as though they were separate beings. That the anima, as well as the animus, can appear as multiple figures is seen, of course, in mythology. In Greek mythology, for instance, there are innumerable goddesses. Athena, Aphrodite, Demeter, Hera, and Artemis make up the five major goddesses of the upper world, and there are also Kore and Hecate of the underworld, not to mention lesser goddesses such as Hestia and innumerable nymphs and nixies. In his helpful article "Godquite distinct

desses in

Our Midst," 27

Philip Zabriskie discusses the five god-

whom

he regards as a kind of "typology of the feminine." Each goddess, he suggests, is different, and each is "an image of a genuine, ancient, valid mode of the feminine." Aphrodite personifies "that aspect of the feminine which continually seeks union with the masculine, for the erotic magnedesses of the upper world,

tism which powerfully pulls opposites to unite." Hera nine that

is

is

the femi-

male world but "impersonally,"

also related to the

even "institutionally," rather than intensely and individually, for as Queen of Olympus she guards the sanctified institutions of throne and home. Demeter

is

related to the child, not to the

male, and embodies the elemental feminine power to "give birth, to love, to nourish." Artemis, goddess of the amazons, virgin, chaste, sufficient unto herself,

is

the feminine in an impersonal

aspect, and can be seen as dominant in "women of grace, vitality, freedom, un-stuckness, perhaps even psychic powers," Athena, also a virgin goddess, hence complete-in-herself, born from the

27

1974.

Philip Zabriskie, "Goddesses in

Our Midst," Quadrant,

no.

17,

Fall

Chapter Four

1 1

head of her father, Zeus, personified the feminine as concerned with "the world of consciousness, of time, of ego, of work and growth." In these five goddesses Zabriskie sees the models of certain typically feminine

modes of life and

sure, aspects of the

behavior.

They

are

all,

to be

one Great Goddess, but nevertheless appear

as distinct personifications. The goddesses are still alive in the psychology of women, and, depending on which goddess is dominant in the psychology of a woman, give to her personality a distinct stamp. The hetaira, for instance, would have Aphrodite uppermost in her psyche; the mother, Demeter; the amazon, Athena perhaps, and the medium, Artemis, while Hera would be

seen in those

women who

devote themselves to the causes of

home, community, church, and so forth. But t he goddesse s do not appear only in w omen, jhey_appear also in men, and personify the typical aspect of that man's soul. A Dr. Zhivago would certainly be moved by the spirit of Aphrodite, and the chaste, ~ free-runnin g long-distance runner, content in his solitude, by~Sf: temis.

Zabriskie's article adds credence to the thought that the an-

no more a unipersonality than the animus, and that she by many different faces. He also confirms Hillman's thought that anima and animus are terms applicable to men and women alike. These issues cannot be decided here and now, and that is as it should be, for anima and animus remain somewhat borderline ima

is

can, in fact, be best represented

concepts, verifiable in experience, useful in therapy, practical

when we apply them

to ourselves, but at the

ble of being precisely defined.

When we

our understanding on them we see them

at first fairly clearly, but

the farther back our eye travels along the less distinct

same time not capa-

shine the flashlight of

beam

of our

they appear to be. For practical purposes,

light, it is

the per-

haps better to stick with Jung's original definition and reserve the anima as a term for masculine psychology, and the animus for feminine psychology, but it would be a mistake to cast this into the form of a dogma and insist that this be so. For in dealing with the anima and the animus we are dealing with figures that are largely unconscious to us.

Try as we might, the

light of conscious

The

112

Invisible Partners

discrimination does not penetrate deeply enough into the dimly lit

and labyrinthine passages of the unconscious

make any

The most important cepts of the

contribution Jung

anima and animus

larity that exists within

of psychic

to perimit us to

final statements.

life,

makes

in his con-

is

to give us an idea of the po-

each of us.

We are not homogenous units

but contain an inevitable opposition within the to-

makes up our being. There are opposites within us, call them what we like masculine and feminine, anima and animus, Yin and Yang and these are eternally in tension and are eternally seeking to unite. The human soul is a great arena in which the Active and the Receptive, the Light and the Dark, the Yang and the Yin, seek to come together and forge within us an indetality that

—

—

scribable unity of personality. sites

within ourselves

may

To

achieve this union of the oppo-

very well be the task of

life,

requiring

the utmost in perseverance and assiduous awareness. Usually

men need women for this to come about, and women need men. And yet, ultimately the union of the opposites does not occur between a man who plays out the masculine and a woman who plays out the feminine, but within the being of each man and each woman in whom the opposites are finally conjoined. It will be clear by now that the erotic imagery that comes when

the anima and animus begin to emerge into conscious-

ness has behind

it

the urge toward wholeness.

The

desire of the

soul to unite with consciousness and forge an indivisible and creative personality el,

is

On this levGod are iden-

the most powerful urge within us.

the urge toward wholeness and the urge to find

tical, and so this urge to wholeness or individuation is also called by Jung the religious instinct. The image of the Coniunctio, of the union of the opposites, of the joining together of the male and female, is the image par excellence of the joining together of the conscious and unconscious parts of the personality. That is why so many of our dreams, and the parables of Jesus as well, concern weddings apt symbols of the union of the opposites toward

—

which the

living energy within us strives.

In the final analysis, the opposites can be united only within

an individual personality. The union of male and female cannot

Chapter Four

113

we unconsciously project one half onto a hupartner and act out the other half. Rather, as Nicholas Berdyaev noted, "it is only the union of these two principles (mascu-

be achieved while

man

and feminine) that constitutes a complete human being." 28

line

We are not

who is going to unite with that going to play out for us the role of our mystical partner. Rather, the prince and the princess, the divine pair, person

who

the prince or princess is

unite within us in a great nuptial action in the unconscious.

For

this reason, if

we must be

lives.

This

all

anima and animus are so

projections.

when

The psychic images of

and so unknown

rich

they will always be projected. But recognize

relationships are to succeed

is

never completely withdraw the

human

and the human why psychology speaks so often of "withdraw projections." As we have seen, we can

partners in our the need to

our

able to distinguish between the divine

it

does

mean

that

to us that

we

learn to

a projection has occurred. This act of conscious-

ness gives us the possibility of integrating projected unconscious

contents bit by

bit,

and, equally important, of making the vital

own minds between what is a projected image on the one hand and a human being on the

distinction in our

arche-

typal

other.

For the divine partners in our lives are the anima and the animus, and their love affairs are matters for the gods. The human partners are the actual men and women in our lives, and while their love may seem at first to be ordinary and mundane when compared to the fire and mystery of divine love, yet both human and divine love can be between them.

A

final

fulfilled

word may be

only

when we

in order

are able to distinguish

about the relationship of our

discourse to a religious understanding of marriage and sexuality.

A proper Christian understanding of marriage, for instance, is based on the archetypal image of the Coniunctio. The church regards the marriage relationship as a representation on the human level of the divine

mystery of the union of Christ with the soul, which has been the church's particular formulation of the archetype of the union of the opposites. By holding up to people the distinction between the union of Christ with the soul on the one 21

Berdyaev, Destiny of Man,

p. 62.

The

114

Invisible Partners

human marriage relationship on the other, the church has maintained an important distinction between the divine and the human dimensions of love. Christian mysticism has long been fascinated with the image of the Coniunctio, and justly so, since it symbolizes so profoundly the relationship with God that the Christian was seeking. So Christ was likened by the Church Fathers to a bridegroom, the soul was his bride, and the cross was the marriage bed on which the union of Christ with the soul was consummated. Saint Auhand, and the

gustine wrote:

Like a bridegroom Christ went forth from his chamber, he went out with a presage of his nuptials into the ...

He came

ing

it,

to the marriage-bed of the cross,

he consummated his marriage.

field

and

of the world.

there, in

mount-

And when

he perceived the

up

to the torment in

sighs of the creature, he lovingly gave himself

place of his bride, and he joined himself to the

woman

for ever.

29

Some Gnostics told the legendary story of Christ going to a mountain, producing a woman from his side, and having intercourse with her. To a chaste Christian ear this story may sound Jung has pointed out, the Gnostics did not intend it that way. They were simply "stammering" in their efforts to express the elusive but numinous image of totality as a union offensive, but, as

of Christ with the soul. 30

Because of

its

rich imagery, Christian mystics particularly

loved the Song of Songs, that most erotic book of the Bible. For the mystic this erotic imagery was not simply sensuality, but was the vehicle for conveying the image of the union of God with the soul. As Evelyn Underhill wrote, "... the mystic loved the Song

of Songs because he there saw reflected, as in a mirror, the most

Origen may have been the first images of wholeness, 32 though the

secret experiences of his soul."

to elaborate

29

Quoted

on these

in C.

erotic

31

G. Jung's Symbols of Transformation, CIV 269 n. 152.

5,

(Princeton,

N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1974), p. 30 31

Inc.,

Jung, Aion,

CW 9,

1930 edition), 32

2,

pp. 202-203.

Evelyn Underhill, Mysticism (New York: E. P. Dutton and Company, p. 137.

Cf. Horn, in Cant. 1.7.

Chapter Four

115

who used this book as a source for reflections on the relationship of God to man is a long one, including Bishop Methodius, who went so far as to declare that as Christ list

of Christian mystics

becomes himself or

unites with the soul each person Christ.

herself a

33

The use of the Song of Songs as a mystical document did not end with the apostolic era, but continued through Christian history until modern times. For instance, in the twelfth century Saint Bernard of Clairvaux elaborated on the image of the Coniunctio of Christ with the soul in a series of moving sermons based on the Song of Songs, and regarded the sensuous imagery of the book as a fitting conveyor for the divine mystery of the relationship of God with mankind, which was better reflected as a great love affair than as anything else.

So the language of the Coniunctio

is

the church. However, the church today

and knowledge of psychology the

modern mind. The

centuries, lost

is

convey

Jesus are, as

I

the language

its

treasure to

that the church has, in recent

original connection with the

its

The teachings of

in order to

difficulty

part of the treasure of

may need

human

psyche.

have shown elsewhere, 34

filled

many of the early Christian Fawho wrote treatises on the soul and on

with psychological meaning, and thers were psychologists

dreams. The current denial on the part of the church of the ty of the psyche

is

reali-

unfortunate, for the union of Christ with the is denied and redoorways through enter into the inner life, this means that

soul cannot be accomplished

if

the soul herself

pressed. Since the Invisible Partners are the

which we must pass

to

they too need recognition as living

realities.

Perhaps one reason for the refusal of the church to acknowledge the reality of man's soul lies in its fear of sexuality. Unlike Saint Bernard, who was not afraid to contemplate the sensuous imagery of the Song of Songs, the church as a whole has been

33

Methodius, "The Banquet of the Ten Virgins," Ch. VIII, Ante-Nicene

Fathers (Eerdmans Press, Vol. VI), the Faith of Things

Not Seen,"

p.

337. See also St. Augustine, "Concerning

par. 10;

and Cyprian, "Treatises," Ante-Nicene

Fathers, Vol. V, p. 523. 34

1970).

John A. Sanford, The Kingdom Within, (New York:

J.

B. Lippincott Co.,

The

116

Invisible Partners

frightened by man's sexual instinct and has sought to repress or

deny

it.

At times

this fear of sexuality

Augustine, for instance, called

has become a mania. Saint

woman

the devil's gateway, and

some other way the human race might have been reproduced without the benefit of woman. Sexual intercourse, he stated, was allowable only for the purpose of propagation; if even married persons enjoyed the act it was a sin. Saint Jerome urged husbands to honor their wives by abstaining from intercourse with them, and claimed that to engage in sexual intercourse with one's wife was an insult to her. (As far as we know tried to envision

he did not consult the wives regarding their feelings in the matter.) He went so far as to deny the sacrament to married persons for several days after they had performed intercourse, on the basis that the purity of the sacrament would be defiled by the sexual act. Peter Lombard once warned Christians that the Holy Spirit left the room when a married couple had sexual relationships, even if it was for the purpose of conceiving a child. If sexual life within marriage bordered on sin, one can imagine the evil that fell on one if sexuality were experienced outside of marriage! There was, to be sure, the sanctity of the Virgin Mary in Christian thought, and one can be grateful that the feminine image was not entirely excluded from Christian imagery, but even she has emerged in Christian imagery as a stainless woman who conceived without benefit of a man, whose own birth was immaculate, and who remained a virgin throughout her life. Thus the church has expressed its fear of woman, earth, and sensuality. Such a fear is not shared by Judaism, however, which from the beginning saw the act of intercourse between man and woman as a holy act. Certain Jewish groups even today prescribe for scholars and rabbis that the Sabbath worship shall be ushered in on Friday evening with sexual union between a man and his wife. In taking her stand, the church has separated, in Gnostic fashion, heaven and earth, spirit and matter, soul and body, and in so doing has damaged the human spirit, and has been false to its own message of the Incarnation. The original intent of the church was, perhaps, to preserve mankind's hard-won spirituality from becoming lost in a sea of sensuality. The spirit and flesh, the spirit and matter, are not so easily reconciled, and the one is

Chapter Four readily inundated by the other.

throw

in its lot

No

117

doubt the church

felt it

must

with man's spiritual development, his sensuality

already being sufficiently strong. The result, however, has not been the unification of personality, but the denial of wholeness, and a swing from one opposite to the other. So in Western history we have a continual seesawing back and forth of extremes of spiritual ascetisim

Nor have

on the one hand, and sensuality on the

other.

the values of the spirit ever been realized through the

repression of the senses, for often the spirit

is

reached through

the senses, and sometimes spiritual development arouses and

needs sensual love in order to be grounded and become substanIn seeking to avoid the conflict of the opposites by the denial

tial.

of one side of

life,

damage has been done

to the spirit of whole-

ness.

And yet it is strange that Christianity should for so long have tolerated a teaching about sexuality that declared that its sole justification was the propagation of the species. As Nicholas Berdyaev has pointed out, this "is transferring the principle of cattle-breeding to tianity's

highest

human relations," and is value: human personality. 35

a denial of Chris-

For, as Berdyaev

notes, sexual love can be entered into in order to express love,

personality,

and

gating children.

relationship, as well as for the purpose of propa-

A

Christian understanding of sexuality as an ex-

pression of the hungering of ship and personality

man

for the fulfillment of relation-

would seem

far

more

religion that has stressed the incarnation of

man

consistent with a

God in

an earthly hu-

life.

What

is

needed

purification of eros

consciousness. Eros uality

is

which

is

is not a denial of sexuality and eros, but the from egocentricity, possessiveness, and unis

not identical with sexuality, but

repressed eros

is

repressed too. Eros

at the heart of all

human

is

creativity, all love

people, even at the heart of the relationship between a

God. Eros warms all alone makes a sacrificial life ing and

wishes to claim eros as his 3?

when

sex-

a mighty power,

between

human

be-

hope to living beings, and possible. But when a human being or her own, to lay hold on the mystery

Berdyaev, Destiny of Man,

p.

life,

240.

gives

The

118

Invisible Partners

of the Coniunctio as his or her private possession, then eros

corrupted by greed and possessiveness, and consciousness

is

its

is

promise of higher

negated.

For these reasons, a Christian theology of marriage should call

not for the denial of eros and sexuality, but for a heightened

awareness of eros and what of agape

is

it

means. The great Christian virtue

not reached by denying eros, but by the purification of

eros. Just as gold

must be extracted from the ore by must the gold of human eros be

purifying the ore, so

the sifting out of the impurities of

human

and by But no

sifting

purified

egocentricity.

one ever obtained the gold by throwing out the ore. For this to be accomplished in our day, psychological awareness, as well as spiritual sensitivity, is needed. The mighty power of eros can become destructive if it is blind, and eros is blind as long as the hu-

man

beings

who

carry in themselves this mighty power are blind

and do not understand their own natures. Eros needs the enlightenment of a developed consciousness in order to reach its proper goal. Yet, without eros, consciousness cannot develop and the goal cannot be reached.

In the last analysis, eros

is

a great mystery.

We

can talk of

we can understand projections, we can speak of the transference, but when we add it all up it comes to zero, for it sexuality,

ends at the great mystery of Love.

o

^™®ooaons

oiftnYolftfto:

Psychological analysis alone

is

not enough to bring about the

Even though we understand all of our personand see the forces at work in us that have shaped our lives, this by itself will not heal us. The chief value of such analysis is that it gives us conscious orientation and a certain perhealing of the soul. al past history,

spective. It also generally increases ego strength, thus freeing us

make

and find new attitudes. All of this is very Something more must be done in order to reconcile the conscious and the unconscious, to alter a destructive inner situation, or bring new life. This calls for some means of establishing and keeping alive the ongoing relationship with the inner world out of which new life comes and through which to

certain choices

helpful, but not enough.

eventually our conflicts

One

may

be resolved. working with the unconscious that was

special tool for

developed by C. G. Jung tion goes a step

is

"active imagination." Active imagina-

beyond meditation. Meditation involves the con-

templation of an image; active imaginaton image.

The technique of

is

interaction with an

active imagination brings into focus an

image, voice, or figure of the unconscious and then enters into an interaction with that

ego

is

image or

definitely a participant.

are positively involved in

figure. In active imagination the

We are not passively

what

is

happening.

vation of the image from the unconscious

watching, but

It calls

and an

alert

an actiand partic-

for

ipating ego. *

*

Originally published in Chapter 6 of

Paulist Press, 1977.

119

my book

Healing and Wholeness,

The

120

One word

Invisible Partners

of caution: Active imagination can start a flow of

images from the unconscious

that, in a

few cases,

may

be

difficult

to stop. This can be frightening, for the images are then like a

flow of water that cannot be turned off and there

is

the fear of be-

have never known anyone actually to be injured in this way, but I have known one or two people who became quite frightened. This is not likely to happen, for most people can turn off active imagination any time they want to, but it is a possibility if someone is too close to the unconscious ing inundated from within.

and has not

sufficient

I

ego strength. In

this case active

imagina-

tion should not be undertaken without the guidance of a skilled spiritual director or therapist

shared

with

whom

the experiences can be

necessary.

if

Active imagination can begin in several ways.

one place to

start.

imagination as a story, writing is

especially helpful in certain

sion.

For

some

figure;

we

are

dream.

A

dream

is

we continue the dream in our down whatever comes to us. This

In this case

dreams that do not reach a conclu-

maybe we dream we are being pursued by we run and run and the dream suddenly ends while

instance,

running from this figure. This is an "unfinished" does not end because the unconscious cannot take the

still

It

We

can continue the dream by finishing its What happens now as that figure pursues us? Perhaps we see ourselves stopping and facing our ad-

action any further.

story in active imagination.

versary, or

maybe someone comes

Any number

be selected and this it

into the situation to help us.

of possibilities present themselves, but only one can is

the one

we

will follow

through to see where

leads us.

A fantasy can also be utilized as the basis for active imagination.

The

place to begin would be with the fantasy that has been

haunting our minds, the uninvited train of thought that keeps

coming back

to us again

and

again.

Maybe

it is

a recurring fanta-

sy of a burglar breaking into our house, or perhaps of

some kind

doom descending on us, or perhaps it is a powerful sexual fantasy. One can take the fantasy and deliberately develop it, writing down whatever occurs to us as we continue the fantasy as a story. of

This has the effect of altering our psychological situation, and of making clearer the underlying meaning of the fantasy. With sex-

Appendix:

A ctive Imagination

121

may

be the only way to avoid living them out concretely in ways that may be destructive to our relationships. One source for Jung's ideas on active imagination was alcheual fantasies this

my. Alchemy spoke of the adept (alchemist) giving careful attention to all the elements in his retort and observing their transformation with great concentration. Jung transliterates the language of alchemy into its psychological equivalent and sees this as a prototype of active imagination. What alchemy suggests, he says, is

that

we

take the unconscious in one of

its

handiest forms, say a spontane-

ous fantasy, a dream, an irrational mood, an of the kind, and operate with

concentrate on

it,

and observe

it.

its

affect, or something your special attention, alterations objectively. Spare no

Give

it

devote yourself to this task, follow the subsequent trans-

effort to

formations of the spontaneous fantasy attentively and carefully.

Above

all,

get into

it,

way one

is

don't

let

anything from outside, that does not belong,

for the fantasy-image has "everything

certain of not interfering

giving the unconscious a free hand.

In the same volume, Jung puts This process can, as tificially

I

have

it

it

needs." In this

by conscious caprice and of

1

even more

said, take place

explicitly:

spontaneously or be ar-

induced. In the latter case you choose a dream, or some

other fantasy-image, and concentrate on

hold of it and looking at

it.

You can

it

also use a

by simply catching bad mood as a start-

what sort of fantasy-image it what image expresses this mood. You then fix this image in the mind by concentrating your attention. Usually it will alter, as the mere fact of contemplating it animates it. The alterations must be carefully noted down all the time, for they reflect the psychic processes in the unconscious background, which appear in the form of images consisting of conscious memory material. In this way conscious and unconscious are united, just as a waterfall connects above and below. ing point, and then try to find out will produce, or

2

1

C. G. Jung, Mysterium Coniunctionis,

University Press, 1963, 1974), 2

Ibid., p. 495.

p. 526.

CW 14 (Princeton, N.J.:

Princeton

The

122

Invisible Partners

Active imagination can be started from any manifestation of the unconscious

—dream,

simplest place to start

—but

mood, or whatever

affect,

goes on within the minds of most of us.

A

"arguing" with ourselves. there are

all

We

spend a

trial for

lot

of time

introspection will reveal that

little

kinds of voices battling inside of us. Often these

ner dialogues resemble courtroom scenes, and

on

the

with the daily running dialogue that

is

something. There

is

it is

as if

in-

we were

the inner prosecutor, the critical

voice that tries to convict us of this or that, and that also, as a rule, constitutes itself as

this voice usually has a

woman

judge as well as accuser. In a

masculine character, and in a

man

a femi-

nine character. These "voices" are like autonomous thoughts or

moods we are

that suddenly inject themselves into our consciousness. If

unaware of them, we become

totally

If the voice

we

are hearing

is

identical with them.

the accusing voice of the inner critic

we become depressed, and our selfTo become aware of the autonomous to begin to make a distinction between

or "prosecuting attorney,"

image goes down to

zero.

nature of these voices

them and

is

and this dawning awareness brings the possibility of breaking free from what amounts to a state of being possessed. To begin an active imagination with the argument we are hearing inside of us we start by writing down the thoughts alus,

ready racing through our minds. ent voices

we

hear.

It

helps to personify the differ-

The "Prosecuting Attorney,"

the "Great

Score Keeper," the "Cynical Bystander," the "Forlorn

Woman,"

are personifications of inner voices that certain people have used

from time to time. The personification should, of course, correspond to the kind of voice we are hearing. Transferring the inner argument to paper makes it possible for us to respond to these autonomous thoughts, and encourages us to clarify and adopt our

own

point of view.

hear what

is

By

writing things

now

being said, and are

these utterances for

what they

are.

all,

really begin to

examine

we may discover instance, may not be so

In doing this

that the authority of the inner critic, for

great after

down we

in a position to

that while this critic poses as

personification of collective opinions, that

God

is,

it is

actually a

of general or con-

ventional points of view.

Writing things

pen

in

down

hand and begin

also strengthens the ego, for to take

to write

is

an ego

activity,

and has the

ef-

Appendix:

A ctive

Imagination

1

2

and centering consciousness, and affirming it in Hence it now becomes possible to find our position and, perhaps, turn the tables on an inner enemy who, up until now, has had the advantage of being able to feet of solidifying

the face of destructive influences.

work in the dark. Of course it can also be a positive voice that we hear and with which we learn to talk. Just as there is a negative voice that seems to want us to

fail in life,

gives us helpful insights

and

so there

is

a positive voice that

flashes of inspiration.

We

can

culti-

vate a relationship with this side of ourselves by learning to dia-

logue with

The

it,

and

our life situation. such a figure a spiritus familiaris.

talk over with

ancients used to call

Socrates referred to

it

it

as his "daimon,"

meaning not "demon"

in

the negative sense of the word, but his "genius" or inspirational spirit.

In Christian parlance

it is

a version of the guardian angel

or a manifestation of the guidance of the Holy

Spirit.

Psychologi-

can be likened to a personification of the Self as it relates to ego consciousness. If a relationship with this inner figure can be developed, we are greatly helped. It is like cally this positive figure

having an inner analyst or spiritual director. In some cases

way

it is

freedom from dependence on an analyst, for it gives us access to our own unconscious wisdom. Notice how many times I have said that in doing active imagination we must write it down. There are many reasons for putting active imagination in writing. Writing gives reality to it; unless it is written it may seem wispy and vaporish and lack impact. Writing things down also keeps us from cheating on the process. It may be that there are some unpleasant things we have

the

to

to learn about ourselves

and

it is

easy to avoid these unless they

are written. Writing also, as mentioned, strengthens the

hand of

the ego and develops our conscious position in the face of the unit gives us a permanent record and enables us from time to time to review what we have done. Not only does this refresh the memory, but there are times when something has emerged in active imagination that we could not understand at

conscious. Finally,

the time but

There

is

clear to us later.

one exception to the practice of recording active imagination; sometimes it works best when we are in a meditative state, and writing it down might interrupt. Pursue the active is

The

124

Invisible Partners

imagination while meditating, but then record

it

immediately in a

journal. I

mentioned the

greater difficulty

down

tion itself

is

do it must be written

getting people to

has to do with the fact that write

doing active imagination, but the

risk in

lies in

it

active imagination

hard work;

overcome the

it

work. In

is

when

matters. People are lazy about their

want

to have to

to us. This

is

a

work on

it

become

fact, active

comes

own

ourselves, but

common

all.

takes discipline, and to

inertia that grips us

Some

at

to

do

it

of this

real.

To

imagina-

we must

to psychological

We

psyches.

want everything

do not to

come

difficulty the therapist encounters:

He

come to him expecting him to have some magic with which to make everything all right, and they won't have to do the work themselves. Not only is this exhausting for the therapist, who has to provide more than his share of energy for the process, but the client does not make satisfactory progress, for the fact is that we get well in direct proportion to the energy we finds that people

put into our psychological development. In addition to the lazy streak in us, which resists doing active

imagination precisely because

it is

"active,' ' there is also the

comment that it your own thoughts." As soon as we depart from voice within us that

is

certain to

is

"nothing but

known and to comment

the

conventional, this cynical, doubting voice begins

what we are doing is nonsense, banal, or not worth writing down. It is another aspect of the critical voice we have met before, and may also say to us when we awaken with a dream, "Oh, that dream doesn't mean anything." People who try to do creative writing are certain to run into this voice too, and will hear it say things such as, "Oh, that has already been written," or, "You

that

will

never be able to get

it

published." This voice will try to keep

make poisonous comments as though it wants to keep our development on the most mediocre level possible. It acts like a negative-mother-voice in a man, or a poisonous-father voice in a woman, a version of the witch who, in fairy tales, paralyzes the young hero or heroine, turning them into stone, or sending them into sleep, or causing us from doing active imagination, and will

them

to lose their heads.

There are two ways to deal with tive

imagination. One method

is

this voice as

to resolutely

it

relates to ac-

go ahead anyway,

Appendix: Active Imagination

125

what that voice says, I am goand when it is done we will see what it is like." The other method is to begin the active imagination by dialoguing with the voice itself. If we have it out with this voice to begin with we may find that the battle is half won and we are beginning to free ourselves from something paralyzing that has affected us on many levels of life. In the dialogue form of active imagination it often works to say something like, "I don't care

do

ing to

this active imagintion

best to write

We identify

down

the

first

the voice with

thoughts that come into our minds.

whom we

wish to speak and say what

we want, and then record the first "answering thought" that occurs to us. Then we answer back, and so the dialogue proceeds. It is important not to criticize or examine what is being said as we go along, but to proceed as er,

when

it is all

finished,

ten and examine

it

for

if it

were a normal conversation. Latover what we have writ-

we can go back

some of its content

if

we

wish.

Active imagination sometimes has more vitality than at oth-

There are times when an image, voice, or fantasy there and becomes activated at once and interacts with er times.

other times the results stance,

may

may

not be so

vital.

Some

is

right

us.

At

people, for in-

be able to do active imagination in the morning, but

not in the evening. For others

it

may

be the other way around.

Each person must find his own way of working and discover what suits his personality the best. Active imagination can be very long or very short. A good example of a long active imagination is found in Gerhard Adler's book The Living Symbol? in which he discusses a series of active imaginations a woman did over many months, out of which there evolved a long and elaborate fantasy. On the other hand, active imagination tion

I

know

may of

The shortest active imaginawho was attempting for the third

also be quite brief.

came

to a writer

time to revise a manuscript to please his publisher. Previously he

had been able

to

make

certain changes, but this time

at his typewriter absolutely nothing

when he

sat

came. For three days he was

in depression as not a single

thought or word came to him,

though usually words flowed

like water.

At

al-

became

clear

Gerhard Adler, The Living Symbol, (New York: Pantheon Books,

1961).

least

it

1

The In visible Partners

26

that something in

him was

resisting revising the manuscript, so

he decided to personify this resistance and talk to it. The resulting active imagination went like this; Author (to his resistance): "Okay, why are you resisting doing this work?"

Answering voice (immediately): "Because

it is

already writ-

ten."

was nothing more that needed to be said. With this the author realized that the book was in its proper and completed form as it now stood, and if the publisher with whom he was corresponding did not want it that way he had to find another publisher. And this is exactly what happened. That was

it;

there

Ultimately active imagination reconcile the conscious

is

helpful because

and the unconscious.

It

it

tends to

takes us into a re-

lationship with the figures of the unconscious, "negotiating"

and

working things out with them. This helps bring about that paradoxical union of the conscious and unconscious personalities that corresponds to what the alchemists called the unio mentalis. Just as the alchemists, in the search for the stone, started with materi-

were commonly

we

with the otherwise meditation or through rejected material of the unconscious and, active imagination, activate an inner process. Jung, in a commen-

als that

tary

how

rejected, so

start

on alchemical symbolism, gives us this apt description of works to bring us closer to wholeness:

this process

Thus the modern man cannot even bring about the unio mentalis which would enable him to accomplish the second degree of conjunction. The analyst's guidance in helping him to understand the statements of his unconscious in dreams, essary insight, but

when

it

comes

etc.

may

provide the nec-

to the question of real experience

the analyst can no longer help him: he himself must put his hand to the work. He is then in the position of an alchemist's apprentice

inducted into the teachings by the Master and learns all the tricks of the laboratory. But sometime he must set about the opus himself, for, as the alchemists emphasize, nobody else can do it for

who

is

him. Like this apprentice, the modern ly

prima materia which presents

man begins

itself in

with an unseem-

unexpected form

—a con-

temptible fantasy which, like the stone that the builders rejected, is "flung into the street" and is so "cheap" that people do not even

look at

it.

He

will observe

it

from day to day and note

its alter-

Appendix: Active Imagination

127

ations until his eyes are opened or, as the alchemists say, until the fish's eyes,

The

or the sparks, shine in the dark solution.

light that gradually

standing that his fantasy

him

is

dawns on him

.

.

consists in his under-

a real psychic process which

is

happen-

personally. Although, to a certain extent, he looks

on and suffering figure in the drama of the psyche. .If you recognize your own involvement you yourself must enter into the process with your personal reactions, just as if you were one of the fantasy figures, or rather, as if the drama being enacted before your eyes were real. It is a psychic fact that this fantasy is happening, and it is as real as you as a psychic entity are real. ... If you place yourself in the drama as you really are, not only does it gain in actuality but you also create, by your criticism of the fantasy, an effective counterbalance to its tendency to get out of hand. For what is now happening is the decisive rapprochement with the unconscious. This is where insight, the unio metalis, begins to become real. What you are now creating is the beginning of individuation, whose immedi4 ate goal is the experience and production of the symbol of totality. ing to

from outside, impartially, he .

—

is

also an acting

.

—

While Jung

is

the one

who

first

developed active imagination

working with the unconscious, it has been used before. A very good example of active imagination is found in Matthew's Gospel in the story of the Temptations in the Wilderness. Jesus has gone into the wilderness to be alone after receiving the Holy Spirit from God and as a psychologically refined tool for

5

hearing the voice that proclaimed "This

whom

I

happen

am

well pleased." Naturally, the

my

first

beloved Son, in

thing that would

an inflation, a temptation to take the experience in the wrong way, and this temptation is presented in the voice of Satan, who says, "If thou be the Son of after

such an experience

is

is

God, command that these stones be made bread." Jesus hears and answers it. The voice then speaks a second time, and a third, and each time Jesus hears the voice and

that voice within himself

replies to

it.

This

is

active imagination.

ing that the Satan in the story is

very real, so real that unless

is

not

Nor

real.

we hear

it,

4

Jung, Mysterium Coniunctionis, pp. 528-529.

5

Mt. 4:1-11 KJV.

is

this a

way of say-

Such a voice within us recognize it for what it

1

The

28

Invisible Partners

will likely be taken over by it. Had this whole life would have gone the wrong way. His dialogue with Satan was the cornerstone of the life and ministry that he built and is a vivid illustration of how vital active

and respond to happened to Jesus

is,

it,

we

his

imagination can be. Finally, note that the

term

is

active imagination. It

is

not a

technique in which the movements of the unconscious are simply observed. Rather the ego asserts

itself in

the process, and the de-

mands of the unconscious must be measured

against the reality of

was very evident. it and responded to

the ego. In his dialogue with Satan, Jesus' ego

He it.

did not just hear the voice, but reacted to

Of course

the dialogue might be with a helpful voice too, such

as the dialogue Elijah

Mt.

Sinai.

6

But

had with Yahweh's voice

in the cave

on

in either event the process of active imagination

by the ego, and represents an attempt of consciousness and the unconscious to have it out with each other and work out together a creative life.

calls for active participation

1

Kings

19:9.

EBfeDDQgKSpljQ^

BOOKS Emily.

Bronte,

Wuthering Heights.

New

York:

Random

House,

1943.

Inc.,

Castillejo, Irene de.

Knowing Woman. New York: G.

P.

Putnam's Sons,

1973.

A highly provocative study of feminine psychology. Drury, Michael, To a Young Wife from an Old Mistress. Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1966. Wise, profound advice from one

woman

to another.

Franz, Marie-Louise von. The Feminine in Fairy Tales. Zurich: Spring Publications, 1972.

An

excellent study of the feminine in .

men and women.

Apuleius' The Golden Ass. Zurich: Spring Publications, 1970,

1974.

Individuation in Fairy Tales. Zurich: Spring Publications, 1977.

Guggenbuhl-Craig, Adolf. Marriage, Dead or

Alive.

Zurich: Spring

Publications, 1977.

Modern, timely thoughts on marriage, with good chapters on the meaning of sexuality. Hannah, Barbara. Striving Towards Wholeness. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1971. The chapters on the Bronte sisters and Wuthering Heights are an important contribution to feminine psychology and the psychology of the animus.

129

The

130 Harding, Esther. The

Company,

An

Way of All Women. New York: David McKay

Inc., 1933, 1961.

"old timer" now, but .

Invisible Partners

Woman's

still

valuable.

Mysteries, Ancient

and Modern. New York: G.

P.

Putnam's Sons, 1971. Valuable archetypal material on the nature of the feminine.

Johnson, Robert,

HE! King

of Prussia, Pa.: Religious Publishing Co.,

1974.

A little jewel; .

a splendid study of the psychology of men.

SHE! King

of Prussia, Pa.: Religious Publishing Co., 1976.

A succinct study of feminine psychology. In the following Jung entries, consult the Table of Contents and the Index for passages regarding the anima and animus. Jung, C. G. Collected Works [hereafter cited as Analytical Psychology. .

CW

9,

1,

New

CW\

7,

Two Essays

in

York: Pantheon Books, 1953.

The Archetypes of the

New

Collective Unconscious.

York: Pantheon Books, 1959. .

.

CW9,

2,

Aion.

New

York: Pantheon Books, 1959.

CW 13, Alchemical Studies. Princeton, N.

J.:

Princeton Univer-

sity Press, 1967, 1970.

CW 14, Mysterium

Coniunctionis. Princeton, N.

J.:

Princeton

University Press, 1963, 1974. .

CW 16,

The Practice of Psychotherapy.

New

York: Pantheon

Books, 1954. C. G.

Jung Speaking. Edited by William McGuire and R.

Hull. Princeton, N. .

.

.

Letters

Letters

Man

Company, .

J.:

F. C.

Princeton University Press, 1977.

1.

Princeton, N.

J.:

Princeton University Press, 1973.

2.

Princeton, N.

J.:

Princeton University Press, 1975.

and His Symbols. Garden City, N. Y.: Doubleday and Inc., 1964.

New

Memories, Dreams, Reflections.

York: Pantheon Books,

1963. .

Visions Seminars, Part

One and

Part Two. Zurich: Spring Pub-

lications, 1976.

Jung,

Emma. Animus and Anima.

Particularly

Neumann,

A

Zurich: Spring Publications, 1974.

good on the animus.

Erich.

Amor and Psyche. New

study of the most significant

York: Pantheon Books, 1956.

myth of

the feminine in Greek

my-

thology.

Sanford, John A. Healing 1977.

and Wholeness. New York: The

Paulist Press,

Bibliography

The

last

chapter contains a

tion, a useful tool in .

summary

1

3

of the process of active imagina-

attempting to integrate the anima and animus.

The Kingdom Within.

New

York:

J.

B. Lippincott Co., 1970.

Chapters 9 and 10 contain material relevant to the anima and ani-

mus. Singer, June. Androgyny.

Garden

City,

N. Y.: Doubleday Company,

1976

Inc.,

A woman

analyst looks at the problem of

special view to the

Ann

man/woman

today with a

problems facing modern women.

The Feminine in Jungian Psychology and in Christian 111.: Northwestern University Press, 1971. Whitmont, Edward C. The Symbolic Quest. New York: G. P. Putnam's Ulanov,

B.

Theology. Evanston,

Sons, 1969.

The

closest thing there

is

to a textbook in Jungian psychology with

good chapters on the masculine and feminine. Wilhelm, Richard, trans. The Secret of the Golden Flower. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1931; revised and augmented, 1962.

ARTICLES Binswanger, Hilde. "Positive Aspects of the Animus." Spring, 1963. Heisler, Verda. "Individuation in Marriage." Psychological Perspectives 1,

no. 2, Fall 1970.

A valuable contribution to the psychology of marriage relationships. Hillman, James. "Anima." Spring, 1973 and 1974.

Hillman boldly explores the concept of the anima and adds many

new thoughts. Not for beginners, but thought-provoking. Hough, Graham. "Poetry and the Anima." Spring, 1973. Ostrowski, Margaret. "Anima Images in Carl Spitteler's Poetry." Spring. 1962.

Wolf, Toni, "Structural Forms of the Feminine Psyche."

This was privately printed and

sume of it

in

is

out of print, but there

Whitmont's book, already

is

a good re-

cited.

Zabriskie, Philip. "Goddesses in our Midst." Quadrant, no. 17, Fall 1974.

An five

important

article

on the nature of the feminine based on studies of

Greek goddesses.

PAMPHLETS Hannah, Barbara. "The Problem of Contact with Animus." London: Guild of Pastoral Psychology, 1962.

1

The

32

Invisible Partners

'The Religious Function of the Animus

in the

Book of Tobit."

London: Guild of Pastoral Psychology, 1961. Heydt, Vera von der.

"On

the Animus." London: Guild of Pastoral

Psychology, 1964. Lander, Forsaith, "The Anima." London: Guild of Pastoral Psychology, 1962.

Metman, Eva, "Woman and Psychology, 1951.

the

Anima." London: Guild of Pastoral

DDD(i]©2X

100; four stages, 68; hideous

Actium, battle

maiden/damsel,

23

of,

active imagination,

Appendix

to defeat

agape, 118

Age

25,

21n

of Faith, The,

Aion,

CW

Indian(s),

androgynous,

3,

4,

13,

70n

3,

65, 93,

5,

6,

how

43; image, 14, 21,

83,

49; mood(s)

CW

and

72;

84,

87; 12,

Jung's 42,

64,

match and gasoline

111;

alchemists, 3

American

it,

72,

term/definition,

9,2, 41n, 50n, 75n, 114n

Alchemical Studies,

57,

homosexuality, 98, 99;

6 In, 94,

42,

61,

59,

71;

37,

36, 43, 49,

35,

mouthpiece/

bridge and the unconscious,

99

43, 64, 70, 72; neither

95, 98,

good

nor bad, 67; and persona, 70,

100 anger, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 50, 53

71; personification of, 64, 69,

animare, 6

70; positive/negative, 15, 32,

"Anima," 40n

36,38,41,42,43,60,72,

anima:

possession, 35, 36, 41, 49, 51,

12, 22, 25, 34, 35, 36, 37,

110;

power, 24, 32; projec-

40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 49, 50, 53,

53, 54;

54, 55, 58, 60, 64, 66, 67, 68,

tion^), 14, 15, 20, 24, 25, 67,

69, 70, 72, 75, 78, 84, 85, 86,

73, 83, 85, 106, 107; relation-

91, 109;

106;

100,

105,

106,

107,

an archetype, correct/proper

12,

ship, 35, 36, 40, 41, 67, 70,

108, 66,

71,

place,

40, 65, 69-70; development, 68f; dialogue with, 6 Iff;

83,

98;

emotion(s),

87;

dou-

37,

40,

resentment, 36; and 74,

106;

uni/

multi-personality,

109,

111;

25,

as witch,

66,

11,

15, 37, 43, 44,

49, 50, 51, 54; "

and man's ego,

ble,

84;

soul,

woman," 106

41,

50-51; and eros, 67, 75; fan-

anima/animus:

tasies, 25, 59, 71, 72, 73, 82,

133

12, 13,

1,

6, 7, 9,

17,20, 31,

54",

10,

11,

58, 59,

1

The

134

Invisible Partners

jection, 15, 16, 73, 77; sword,

60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 68, 76,

48, 49, 50, 51; in Wuthering

82,83,89, 105, 111, 112, 113; archetypes,

6, 13, 62, 80;

no ego

rect place, 63, 65; ality,

11;

and

sies,

61,

82;

definition, 6,

re-

evil, 65; fanta-

term/

Jung's 11,

Heights, 46, 47, 74

cor-

12, 63, 64;

"master-piece," 10, 65; most

Animus and Anima,

posi-

Antony, Mark, 20,

22ff,

Pandemos and Ouranos, 68f Apocrypha, 33 "apprentice-piece," 10

44, 50, 54, 55, 56, 58, 59, 63;

archetype(s):

17,20,24, 30, 50, 59, 64, 113; quarrel,

107,

man, animus:

17;

relationship,

30,

10;

ani-

106,

100,

6;

mas-

10,

100,

Jung's term, 7,

102, 109, 110;senex, 96

Archetypes of the Collective Un-

witch and medicine

62;

54,

1

113;

13, 66, 80,

culine/feminine,

18,

49, 50, 63; relationship dia-

gram,

6,

ma/animus,

possession, 51; projection, 10, 11,

32

Aphrodite: 3n, 68, 86, 110, 111;

tive/negative/dark, 13, 17, 34,

65, 80, 83,

75n

Anthropos, 4

important contribution, 112; personified, 12, 64, 70;

48,

Ante-Nicene Fathers, 115n

conscious, The,

CW

9,1, lOn,

37n, 65n, 67n, 99n

11

11, 39n, 40, 43, 44, 45, 46,

47, 48, 49, 52, 53, 54, 58, 59,

Artemis, 110, 111

Athena, 110, 111

60, 68, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77,

78, 79, 97, 105, 106, 108, 109,

B

111; anima's, 41; creative, 26,

berdaches, 99

72; quotation lejo,

from de

Castil-

76; dialogue with, 62f,

Berdyaev, Nicholas,

5, 6, 113,

117

Bronte, Emily, 46, 47, 73

78; double, 87; fantasies, 59, 73; "ghostly lover," 73; guide/

bearer/

Caesar and Christ, 22n, 7 In

how

Christ, 113, 114, 115

psychopomp/torch bridge,

defeat 73, tion,

72, it,

74; 12,

75, 34;

Jung's 111;

76;

to

individuation,

term/definilogos,

75;

a

Circe, 3 If, 34

Cleopatra, 22ff, 32 collective unconscious (see uncon-

mother's, 45, 97; multi-personality,

109; opinion(s), 41,

43, 44, 45, 48, 49, 59, 60, 62, 78,

47,

109; personification, 74;

Coniunctio,

15,

16, 32, 34, 43, 47, 54, 60, 72,

112,

113,

114,

115,

118

33,

positive/negative/

dangerous/destructive,

scious, collective)

complex(es): 34; Mother, 38

container and contained, 27f, 8

Cyprian, 115n

73, 75, 76, 77, 78, 110; pos-

D

session, 33, 39n, 43, 52; pro-

Dante,

20ff,

24

Index Death in Venice, 95 de Castillejo, Irene,

135

tation

from

Harding,

78 Demeter, 110, 111

102; values, 34

depression, 35, 57, 58

evil:

34, 44, 65, 74,

116; can en-

Destiny of Man, 6n

gender

Development of Personality, The, 17, 27n

topheles, 56; quotation

CW

dream(s): 85, 109,

Mephis-

56;

from

Paul, 9

115; ani-

112,

6, 61,

St.

good,

exogamous, 83

Divine Comedy, The, 21

ma/animus,

108,

from Jung, 75; quotation from von Franz, 109; quotation

16, 75, 76, 77,

65, 66, 70,

72, 73, 109; Jane's, 26; negative

animus, 43; in Wuthering

fairy tales, 6, 3

fantasy(ies),

Heights, 46f

18,

25,

19,

40,

71,

8 In, 82, 88, 102; anima/ani-

Durant, Will, 21n, 22, 71n

E

mus, 25, 61,

64, 65, 66, 72,

73,

archetypal,

82,

86;

40;

dark, 48, 71; death, 28; eroecstasy, 96, 101

tic/sexual/seductive,

14,

ego: 11, 12, 13, 17,43, 51,61, 62,

59,

69, 71, 73, 80, 81, 83, 88, 89, 63, 70, 89, 97, 98, 101, 111;

and 64;

collective

feminine,

unconscious,

homoge-

76;

90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 100, 101;

individuation, 92; Jung's, 42f; love, 18, 19, 25, 73; romantic,

nized, 13; masculine, 13, 98, 100; possession

by anima/an-

imus, 51, 98; relationship dia17; and the and writing, 61, 62 Eliade, Mircea, 5n

gram,

73, 88; symbolic meaning, 92, 94;

what we do with them 82

Faust, 56, 91 Self,

96;

Feminine

in

Fairy Tales, The, 27n

52, 86n, 95

Freud, Sigmund, 92, 101

emotion(s): 18, 36, 37, 39, 40, 66, 69, 84;

and the anima,

51, 64: life-giving, 65,

37, 40,

67 Gaius, Suetonius, 7 In

endogamous, 83 energy(ies):

36, 66, 77, 88, 94,

8, 9,

96; creative, 27, 42; life/liv-

112; psychic, 8,

ing, 58, 60, 13, 27,

80, 82, 85,

secrets, 85; sexual,

108;

and

89,

96,

Greek god, ra,

102,

68;

117,

Book

118;

and the hetaiand femi-

103; masculine

nine, 68; passive, 82, 84; quo-

of,

4

"ghostly lover," 73

God,

4, 33, 68, 69, 112, 114, 115,

117

"Goddesses

92

eros: 8, 34, 44, 45, 60, 67, 68, 75, 84,

Genesis,

in

our Midst,"

gods/goddesses: 3n,

1

10

4, 10, 13,

15,

19,31,51,72,86,94, 100, 108, HOf, 113; Babylonian

18,

mythology,

Great

44;

Goddess,

Eros, 100,

68;

111;

The

136

Invisible Partners

personification of archetype,

10

50; projected, 11, 13, 14, 16,

26, 67,

17,

80,

85,

87; psy-

Goethe, 56, 91

chic, 13, 14,65, 113; Self, 95;

Golden Ass of Apuleius, The, 97n, 102n Guggenbuhl-Craig, Adolf, 81, 90

soul,

91, 92, 100, 101

25,

15,

67,

76,

individuation: 65, 72, 73, 74, 81,

and

82, 83, 91, 92, 101, 112;

guilt, 28, 47, 51, 53, 81, 83, 92,

93

of

98;

wholeness, 94

92

fantasies,

Individuation in Fairy Tales, 4n

H

Through

"Individuation

Hannah, Barbara,

46, 47, 74,

75n

Mar-

riage," 29

Harding, Esther, 73, 108

Interpretation of Visions, lln,

HE!, 56

Invisible Partners, 6,

72n

13, 20, 29,

34,50,55,58,63,80, 115

Hecate, 110 Heisler, Verda, 29

Hera, 110, 111 Jesus, 16,28, 112, 115

hermaphrodite, 3

Hermaphroditus, 3n

Johnson, Robert, 56, 57, 72, 87

Hermes, 3n, 31

Jung, C. G.:

hideous damsel/maiden,

56,

57,

58,72

homosexuality,

13, 94, 96, 98,

99

soul, 8, 9, 108

66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 1,

animus,

111;

6,

/ Ching, The,

8

42, 64, 83, 89, 95,

8, 10, 18, 19,

112, 114; anima, 57,

72,

ma/animus, mus, 15, 47,

83, 11,

14,

84,

87;

ani-

76, 83; ani-

76, 87;

pos, 4; archetypal,

coniunctio,

15, 21,

112,

6,

107; ani-

12, 41, 50,

63, 65, 70, 74, 75, 105, 109,

Anthropos,

25,

alchemy,

6 In;

imagination,

ma/animus,

106, 108, 109, 111

image:

12, 54, 55, 64,

3n; anima, 37 40, 43, 51, 55,

Hillman, James, 40, 68, 70, 105,

hun

1, 6, 9,

67, 99, 108, 112, 114; active

Hestia, 110

7-8,

66;

43n;

16,

4;

46,

autobiography,

uncon-

collective

scious, 65; definition(s), 63f,

emotions and

111;

fects, 37;

73;

archetype(s),

marriage, 27;

1 If,

af-

mono-

theism of consciousness,

60f;

Anthro-

possession

64,

113;

psyche, 61; publications, 3n,

115;

9n, lOn, lln, 12n, 16n, 27n,

114,

by

evil,

34;

the

emotional, 83; erotic, 114; en-

37n, 41n, 43n, 50n, 55n, 61n,

dogamous/exogamous,

83;

64n, 65n, 66n, 67n, 68n, 69n,

116;

70n, 72n, 73n, 74n, 75n, 99n,

feminine,

14,

God's,

numinous, 73,

114;

4;

91,

110,

positive/negative,

108n,

83,

105n,

17,

10; soul,

74

114n;

shadow,

Index C. G.

Jung Speaking,

Jung,

Emma,

12n,

54n

Mysticism, 114n

48, 74

myth(s)/mythology(ies):

feminine/masculine, 86f

justice,

137

3,

10,

6,

110; Babylonian, 44;

31, 44,

Circe, 3 If; Greek, 4, 10, 3

K

1

10;

If,

Persian and Talmudic, 4

karma, 85

Kingdom Within, Knowing Woman,

N

The, 115n 16n,

75n

numen/numinosity,

Kore, 107, 110

61, 70, 80, 91,

100

O La

Vita Nuova, 2 In

Odyssey, 31

1,

3n

Letters

2,

3n, 55n, 66n, 67n, 108n

libido,

27

Letters

opinion(s), 41, 43, 44, 45, 48, 49, 59, 60, 62,

63, 64, 78,

109,

110

logos, 9, 41, 58, 75, 106

opposite(s): 89, 98, 106, 108, 110,

Luke, Gospel According

to, 14:26,

29n

112, 113, 117;

anima/animus,

6

M

Origen, 114

Man and His Symbols,

12,

Original

64

Man, 4

Mann, Thomas, 95 "Marriage As a Psychological Relationship,"

Marriage

27n

—Dead or A

persona, 70, 71 live,

8

1

phallus, 96

n

Plato, 4, 5n

"master-piece," 10, 65

Memoirs of Hadrian, 94n

Plutarch, 23

Memories,

Plutarch 's Lives, 23n

42,

Dreams,

Reflections,

43n

Methodius, Bishop, 115 mood(s): 35, 36, 37, 40, 51, 52, 53, 54, 59, 64, 69; anima, 12, 35, 36, 40, 41, 43, 53, 59, 61, 63,

108

p'o soul,

8, 9,

Practice

of Psychotherapy, 16, 68n, 74n, 75n

CW

projection(s):

10,

11,

13,

The,

14,

15,

16, 19, 20, 24, 25, 26, 27, 30,

64, 67, 69, 71; bad/dark/ter-

59, 65, 77, 80, 82, 83, 87, 95,

rible,

96, 98, 102, 113, 118; anima,

57,

15, 20, 35, 49, 50, 51,

58,

71;

passive/aggres-

14, 15, 20, 24, 25, 50, 67, 73,

61

80, 83, 106, 107; animus, 15,

sive, 36; personified,

mother complex, 38 Mysterium Coniunctionis, 66n

16, 20, 24, 50, 73, 77, 80, 83;

CW

14,

mystery, 93, 100, 102, 113, 115, 117, 118

as mirrors,

11; niether

good

nor bad, 20; positive/negative, 16, 17; a psychic, unconscious

mechanism,

10;

the

The

138

Invisible Partners

Self, 94, 95; relationship,

it,

withdrawal

20;

persona,

13,

what we do with

19, 20, 87;

of, 59, 65,

10;

83,87, 113 psyche:

71;

projection,

the psychic world,

with the

Self, 96; sexual,

14, 19, 91, 96, 116; ultimate,

14, 20, 61, 65, 77, 78,

6,

70,

19, 87; to

17,

and projection, 115; growth and development,

man's, 12, 64; personified in

mythology,

10;

and the unconscious,

wisdom,

11;

66;

19;

33, 64, 83, 87; to the highest

83, 85, 87, 94, 104, 106, 111,

68;

Yang and

Yin, 8

resentment, 36

Romans,

Epistle to the 7:19, 9n

woman's, 47,

73

"Psychology of the Transference,

St.

Augustine, 114, 115n, 116

St.

Bernard of Clairvaux, 115

puer, 96

St.

Jerome, 116

Puer Aeternus, 95n, 97n

St.

Paul, 9

The," 74

1

R

Samuel, Book of 18:10-11, 71n; ch. 28,

rejection: 38, 53;

relationship(s):

1, 5,

14, 15, 16, 17,

18, 19, 20, 25, 28, 29, 33, 34,

37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 52, 53, 54, 55, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 67, 68, 70, 75, 79, 82, 84, 86, 87,

88, 91, 92, 93, 94,

104,

anima/animus,

104n

Saul, King, 71, 104

by mother, 53

Secret of the Golden Flower, The, 8,

9n, 61n, 64

self/Self: 76, 94, 95, 96;

and

ego,

96 senex, 96

Seven Arrows, 3n

6,

sexuality, 4, 8, 68, 80, 89, 91, 92,

30, 35, 36, 37, 40, 62, 63, 64,

93,94,96, 100, 101, 102, 113,

117;

113,

67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 77, 84; be-

ing in love, 17, 18; between the sexes,

1,

13,

14,

18,

15,

115, 116, 117, 118

shadow:

9,

of, 10;

10, 14, 70; integration

metaphysical, 107

19, 24, 25, 28, 34, 38, 39, 40,

Shakespeare, 18

49, 51, 54, 62, 63, 74, 80, 84,

shaman(ess)(ism),

96, 103; correct, 77, 79; con-

Shamanism, 5n

and contained, 27, 28; Dante and Beatrice, 21; dia-

Song of Songs,

gram,

soul(s): 2,

tainer

17, 29; Eros, 75; extra-

marital, 114, 98;

85;

115,

with God, 68,

117; heterosexual,

homosexual, 94, 96, 98,

Sirens, 3 If,

5,

99, 104

34 114, 115

19, 20, 24, 34, 57, 58,

71,73,85, 106, 112, 114, 115, 116; androgynus, 95; anima, 6, 9, 66, 68, 70, 106; animus, Babylonian my-

99; to inner world, 66; love,

6,

18-19, 20, 26, 48, 83,

thology, 44; Dante's, 21, 24;

105;

marriage, 27, 80, 81, 82, 85, 114;

and moods,

35,

36;

to

9,

74ff;

feminine/masculine,

10,

67,

74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 106; hun,

Index

and active imagination, 6 In; anima/animus, 36, 41, 43, 64, 70, 72, 91, 111; and complex-

108; image, 15, 25, 67,

9,

8,

76,

woman,

inner

98;

Mark

Antony's,

man's,

22,

62;

24;

10, 57, 58, 66, 67, 69,

es, 34;

8, 9,

union with Christ,

67;

114, 114;

union with God,

115;

uals, 99; projection, 59;

108; projected,

115; p'o,

woman's,

unconscious,

Toward

Striving

collective:

64,

by

personified

104;

65, ani-

ma/animus, 63

74, 75, 77, 78, 106

Storm, Hyemeyohsts,

and

relationship, 33, 83, 87

34,72,

15, 16,

coniunctio, 112; heal-

ing powers, 34; and homosex-

72, 74, 77, 85, 106, 109, 111,

25,

139

Underhill, Evelyn, 114

5

3,

Wholeness,

46,

75n

Forms of

"Structural

the Femi-

nine Psyche," 102-103

Visions Seminars, The, 16n

von

symbol(s), 57, 74, 91, 92, 96, 112

Symbolic Quest, The, 90, 103n Symbols of Transformation,

CW

114n

5,

Symposium,

5n

4,

Franz,

Marie-Louise,

4n,

26-27, 52, 64, 86, 95, 97, 102

suicide, 35, 48, 57

W Way of All Women, The, 73n Whitmont, Edward C, 90, 103n wholeness:

6,

58, 65, 72, 89, 95,

96, 101, 112, 117; denial of, 117;

Tai I Chin Hua Tsung

of, 94,

114;

sym-

Chih, The,

Wilhelm, Richard, 9

108

8,

Tobit,

image

bols of, 19, 57, 74

Wolff, Toni, 103

Book of 6:3, 33n

women, types, 103ff, 1 10 Women's Mysteries, 108

torch bearer (see animus)

"Transposed Heads, The," 87

Two Essays gy,

in

CW

Wuthering Heights, 46, 47n, 73

Analytical Psycholo-

7,

12n, 64n, 65n, 69,

105n types of

women,

102ff,

Yang and

110

112;

Yin:

8,

Yin and p'o

U

9,

12, 66,

Yang and hun soul, 9

Yourcena, Marguerite, 94n

Unconscious:

13,

17,

18,

42, 62,

64, 65, 66, 77, 85, 87, 89, 90,

100,

104,

105,

107,

chetypal figures

of,

113; ar35,

59;

Zabriskie, Philip, 110, 111

Zeus, 111

108,

soul, 9;

PARTNERS This book concerns the masculine and feminine dimen-

soui— termed by C.G. Jung the anima/ also demonstrates how the feminine part of a

sions of the

animus.

It

man and

the masculine part of a

partners

in

any male-female

woman

are the invisible

relationship.

The author

understanding and dealing with projections which can damage and even prevent real relationship between a man and a woman. This is a book written for people everywhere who want to understand provides direction

themselves and

JOHN palian

author

A.

their relationships better.

SANFORD,

priest, in

in

is

a Jungian analyst and Episco-

currently a full-time counselor

and

addition to doing extensive lecturing. Previous

Sanford include The Kingdom Within (LipHealing and Wholeness (Paulist Press, 1977), and Dreams and Healing (Paulist Press, 1978). Mr. Sanford lives in San Diego with his wife and two children.

books by

Mr.

pincott, 1970),

PAULIST PRESS 8"

o CO

ISBN: 0-8091-2277-4

$7.95

b o 3